


It's Like Weather

by ssstrychnine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:32:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern day Medieval Times style restaurant AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I quit,” Brienne declares to the echoing air of the dressing room. She’s the only one who uses it, the queen and her ladies have their own room with soft light bulbs around the mirrors and racks for their gowns. She sighs, brushes a thumb over the calluses on her palm, calluses from jousting and swordplay, calluses because she’s good. She doubts even _Jaime Lannister_ has calluses like she does. She sniffs. “ _I quit_.” 

“Brienne?” Sansa’s voice comes quiet and muffled through the door. “You coming tonight?” She asks at the end of every day.

“No,” Brienne calls back. Her answer is always the same.

“Alright, see you tomorrow.” 

“Yes,” Brienne sighs again. She’s done this a thousand times, announced her righteous anger to no one, decided she’s going to leave once and for all, she’s been made to lose for the _last time_. But she always sighs and remembers the good parts, like Sansa who is genuinely sweet and kind, and Pod, the apprentice who desperately wants to be a real actual knight and who calls her _sir_ , and the horses and the swords and the screams of the crowd, even if they don’t wave her colours. And really, truly, she can’t imagine doing anything else.

She peels off her costume. Blue everything, cloak, surcoat, armour. Not real, not nearly heavy enough. If it were real armour she’d need someone to help her take it off. Brienne the Blue Knight. But no one would squire for her, it wouldn't fit in with everything else. All the storylines she’s had. Blue for grief, the last supporter of the young rebel Baratheon, the only female knight of the Seven Kingdoms medieval themed restaurant and show, and a traitor. 

Outside, the concrete is slick wet and steaming from recent rain. She walks passed the rest of them, all waiting for a taxi to take them to some pub or back to Sansa’s place or whatever it is they do almost every night after work. Sansa waves to her and Brienne smiles. Jaime whistles at her and Brienne pulls the fingers. The others mumble half greetings or offer half smiles or ignore her completely and she moves fast to get away from the noise of how close they are with one another.

At home she soaks away the bruises and the tired muscles and the stiff fingers. She soaks away all of her losses and all of their victories. The golden knight, the knight of flowers, the black knight, all of them beat the traitorous blue knight. Even though she’s better, even though she _knows_ she’s better. the point of Jon’s lance is _never_ strong, she always has to shift position to let him win properly. But he’s husband to Queen Daenerys and he was _always_ on the Targaryen’s side and _he_ never fell in love with a Baratheon traitor. Not like she did. In the script. She soaks away everything and tells herself a thousand times how _not real_ all of it is. 

That night she dreams of Renly, the laughing lord with the bluest eyes. The same blue as the armour she wears as a tribute. She hasn't thought of him in a long time. Not since he was fired (not since he was _‘killed’_ ) for his relationship with Loras. _Workplace relationships are forbidden in the employment agreement_ Petyr said, but Brienne thought that really it was because he hadn’t known, and Petyr did _not_ like to be kept in the dark about anything. (She hadn't known either, but that was no shock). She can’t even remember if the love was all scripted or she really did have feelings for him. He _was_ beautiful and he _had_ been kind to her, but her dreams blur that until he’s laughing at her with all the rest of them and she wakes up unnerved and shaking and knows the day will only get worse.

Brienne swims to get rid of her dreams. Fifty laps that leave her hair chlorine fried and her fingers pale and her calluses soft, and early enough in the morning that there’s no one to see her. It’s harder to disguise how she looks in a swimsuit. As modest as it is, it’s still a far cry from her usual baggy t-shirt and jeans, or her armour where no one can even tell she’s a woman until she takes her helm off (and even then it’s not obvious). She’s out of the water and dressed before six and at work by eight. 

Usually there is no one to see her, no one thinks it’s useful to practise as much as she does. Because none of them have university degrees in medieval studies, and none of them think that they’ll be doing this for very long. Most of them think they’ll be _actors_. Sansa writes and sings sickly sweet love songs. But today Jaime Lannister is swinging a practise sword at a cloth dummy with such fury Brienne thinks she’s lucky she only ever comes out in bruises. She turns to leave, but he spots her immediately and his grin is as savage as the stroke of his sword.

“Wench! Perfect!” he cries happily. He thinks it’s funny to call her that. Because that’s what his character calls her, the lion of Lannister. Brienne the Wench.

“Don’t call me that,” she says automatically. His hair is damp with sweat and plastered to his forehead and his shirt is clinging to his chest and she scowls at her feet and buries the tip of the blunted sword into the padded floor and wonders how long he’s been there.

“It’s only fun,” he protests, balancing his blade across his shoulder. “Have you come to play at fighting.” 

“Why are you here? You’re never here,” Brienne says flatly. He laughs, swings the sword down, kicks the tip back up.

“Petyr told me it was becoming too obvious you were losing on purpose.”

“He did?” Her fingernails dig into the leather grip of the sword. Petyr would never tell _her_ that, he’d tell her she was a bad actor. He’d tell her she was too emotional. _It’s not real_. “He’s right, you’re lazy.”

“Spar with me then, Wench.” 

He raises his sword properly, grips it with two hands, shifts his stance wider. She watches him for a moment, thinking she might say no, fight the cloth figures like he has been. But he looks so annoyingly _bold_ and she realises that she can beat him for real here, alone and unwatched. She swings her sword up like lightning but he’s there like steel and she staggers slightly in surprise. It’s different to their scripted bouts, _he’s_ different. There’s anger behind every slash and he hacks at her with the weapon like he really wants to hurt her. But she’s still _better_ , and she meets every blow and strikes back fierce. His eyes glow with laughter though his mouth is grim, a set line. 

“You know, if I kind of keep my eyes closed and you keep your mouth closed, I can almost pretend I’m fighting a guy, and then this isn't so humiliating.” Brienne scowls, swings at him angrily, and he stumbles.

“You probably shouldn't be closing your eyes with a sword in your hand, Lannister,” she spits back and his laugh is bitten off by her sword crashing into his side. She sweeps his legs out from under him, drops her sword to push him down, her palms at his chest, and he hits the floor hard. He struggles to his feet using his sword as a lever and something in his expression has changed. His smile is gone.

“You want to know why I’m really here?” he asks, his voice harsh and eager. Brienne shakes her head slightly, presses her lips together, but he steps closer. “My sweet sister kicked me out of our house.” She doesn't know what that means or why he’s telling her, only that there is something so ugly behind his eyes, so cold and crawling that she takes a step back.

“Oh,” she manages quietly. “I’m sure you deserved it.” And his grin is back, sharp as a blade, and he drops his sword to the floor, pulls a lazy half salute, and stalks out of the room.

Brienne spends the rest of the day fighting against mannequins and trotting horses around fields. She reads her script, words of anger and grief and defeat, and she smoothes the wrinkles from her costume. She doesn't see Jaime again, not until the evening when everyone arrives for dress rehearsal and he’s laughing and golden as always. No trace of the strangled up and burned out person she’d fought in the morning. He doesn't speak to her at all.

She loses to Loras and Jon that night, in jousts and in swordplay. She topples off her horse like an expert and the queen's ladies laugh. Jaime swaggers around like the arena and his cloak is gold and he doesn't fight anyone, just performs tricks with horses and falcons. He’s good with the animals, he _likes_ the animals, and Brienne watches him and thinks she shouldn't care so much that he treats them better than he does her. Sansa invites her to go out with them and Brienne declines, goes home, and dreams again.


	2. Chapter 2

On her first day at Seven Kingdoms, Jaime laughed at her. He thought she had been hired to play a lady, one of Dani’s girls, and he laughed until tears shone in his eyes and Brienne decided to hate him. She had know people like him before, she’d been ten years old when she realised that she wasn't _pretty_ , taunted in the playground by boys already a head shorter than her. Then high school, tricked kisses and roses and dances, nothing genuine, always laughter behind the gifts. At university too, where she foolishly thought the boys might have grown up. There they stopped joking about her looks and instead called her _teachers pet_ , but its the same thing. She _knows_ people like Jaime, so she’s not surprised to see he has bounced back. There is nothing of the person who fought her the day before. He’s as cruel and bitingly wicked as he always is, nothing scary under his eyes, only dark circles to tell her it hadn't been a dream. He is lazy in their dress rehearsal, his sword limp in his hand, not bothering to defend her attacks.

“Want to know a secret?” he asks Loras who is standing to the side, twirling his sword. “I know who’s going to win.” They both laugh, like glass breaking, and Brienne bites her lip and bites her lip and sheaths her weapon to wait until they’re done. But Jaime doesn’t stop. His words are more barbed than ever, he cuts at every turn. It’s more pointed, like she’s done something particular to wrong him, and it makes even the others uneasy. She remembers him hitting the ground and she imagines it happening over and over again and makes it louder than his laughter.

She watches the stands fill from backstage, waving their flags of red and gold or rose printed or black. There is no blue, they don’t even sell blue, she’s the villain of the story.

Jaime is her last fight of the evening, he’s already beaten everyone else. He’s given a rose to the queen and blown a kiss to Sansa and winked at Loras’s sister Margaery. Jon bowed to him after his defeat, Loras laughed with him. Brienne has done horse tricks and sword tricks, the only time she gets cheered for. Her anger builds with every fall of his hair, every glint of his wicked eyes. Then it’s their turn.

“Land a blow and I’ll call you sweetheart,” Jaime laughs as they circle closer. Her eyes burn and the crowd jeers and it settles her, firms her resolve. Daenerys makes her speech and waves her flag and Brienne draws her sword. She is smiling as she turns the way she shouldn't and his sword slashes through the air and hers crashed into his side. He shouts out his surprise and she hits him again, this time harder, slamming the hilt into his chest, and he topples like a tin can. She sheaths her sword as Jaime tears his helm off and the first aid staff come barreling out. She salutes Dani, who looks stunned and worried and uncertain, kicks sawdust in Jaime’s direction, and storms out of the arena.

“Brienne,” Petyr gets to her first. She’s in the dressing room, slumped over on a bench. She doesn't think she’ll ever know how he does that, how he’s everywhere he needs to be and everywhere she doesn’t want him. “You were supposed to lose.” 

“He insulted me.”

“Of course he insulted you, it’s in the _script_. You could have hurt him.”

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Brienne scowls. “I know how _not_ to hurt someone in swordplay. He’ll be bruised, at worst.”

“You haven’t been doing it so long that you can’t be replaced. It’s not _real_ Brienne, I suggest you brush up on your acting skills.” Petyr is curt and cold, as he always is when he speaks to her, she’s heard this a thousand times. “You’re off for the rest of the night, and please apologise to Jaime. This is an official warning, Brienne.”

She stays in the dressing room for a long time, hoping to avoid seeing Jaime. She’ll call him to apologise, just so she doesn’t have to see his face. He’ll be impossible after this. There’s a headache starting behind her eyes but she wants to go out, disappear into the wet concrete and strangers in crowds.

“Brienne?” Sansa’s voice startles her out of her thoughts. “Are you coming tonight?”

“I don’t...” Brienne frowns, gets to her feet to open the door. Sansa beams at her. “Will Jaime be there?”

“I don’t think so, he’s doing something with his sister.”

“I thought they...” Brienne shakes her head, tries not to think about Jaime’s expression when he’d spoken of his sister, like something was eating him from the inside out. “Nevermind. I...I’ll come.” 

Sansa is ecstatic. She hooks her arm through Brienne’s and practically drags her out to the others, this scrap of a redhead who’s almost a whole foot shorter than Brienne is. Her fingernails are sharp.

“I’ve wanted you to come and hang out with us for so long,” she says as they walk. “We think you’re so exciting, me and the other girls.”

“You...what?”

“The way you fight, it’s... _spectacular_ ,” she draws the word out like she can taste it. “Dani is thinking of asking Petyr if she can do something with the horses, she loves horses.”

“Oh.” The word comes out numb and Brienne feels a little bit like she’s about to have some terrible trick played on her. Certainly in high school girls like Sansa never talked to girls like her without an ulterior motive. Of course, the boys were always worse.

“You beat Jaime so well tonight! You didn't get in too much trouble, did you?”

“Some,” she shrugs. “I got a warning, and I have to apologise to him.”

“Ugh,” Sansa wrinkles her nose. “Jaime’s a shit, it runs in his family.”

“He’s a what?” Jaime is _golden_ , he gets cheered for the loudest and everyone _loves him_. “You know his family?”

“Yeah, they’re all shits,” a shadow crosses her face, her mouth twists angrily. “I dated one of them, he was the biggest shit of them all, Jaime’s just a baby.”

“A baby,” Brienne echoes faintly. She feels like she’s fallen into some parallel universe. “I thought you all... _loved_ him.”

“ _Jaime_?” Sansa laughs. “Oh gosh, no. We hang out with him, he’s funny, we like him, but he’s a shit. Plus, he’s an old man.”

“He is not,” Brienne laughs. “What about the others?”

“Loras is as pretty as a princess and just as silly, and Jon is just so serious. He’s dating a girl now though, I think she works here somewhere. She’s a redhead, that ought to set him straight,” she fingers a lock of her own hair absently. “They’re boys and they’re ridiculous, but we like them.” She pauses, halts Brienne beside her, and looks up, her eyes suddenly sharp. “You know, they don’t mean to be cruel to you.”

“It doesn’t matter if they mean it or not,” Brienne sighs. “And Jaime definitely does.” And they keep walking.

The rest of them are waiting out the front and their smiles are warm. Brienne wonders if she’d missed it before, if they’d always looked at her like that, like she was a friend not someone they ignored, but she doesn't think it’s likely. She smiles awkwardly back and waves a hand. Sansa releases her arm.

They all pile into a taxi van and Brienne finds herself wedged in between Margaery and Jon. Margaery is all curves and dimples and a smile that can mean something different every second. She’s the quietest of the girls, and the newest, and Brienne can’t remember if they’ve ever spoken beyond introductions. But she’s pleasant now, all of them are, making jokes and laughing and chatting about things Brienne doesn't know. She doesn't say anything, just watches it all and thinks she should probably _thank_ Jaime for this. It’s nice, warm and comfortable, even if she doesn't have anything to say.

Sansa’s apartment is bricks and white walls and polished floors. It’s stylish without effort and there are fashion magazines on her coffee tables and black and white photos of Audrey Hepburn on her walls. There are other people there already, Sansa’s friends dressed up nice and drinking raspberry cider. Brienne recognises Arya, Sansa’s younger sister. A bristling girl with grey eyes and a sullen expression, Brienne has met her before, when she was a student at university. Her professor had been their mother, Catelyn Stark, and sometimes they would have tea together and Arya would show up for a moment before dashing off to some sports event. It had been Catelyn Stark who had put in a good word with Petyr to get her the job at the restaurant. Arya nods at her, rolls her eyes at the others, and disappears, slamming a door behind her.

Someone plys Brienne with cider and at first she drinks it slowly, carefully, but soon she’s glad for it. It makes her less stilted, less _terrible_ at talking to all of these people who don’t seem to have any trouble with one another. At one point she finds herself sat between Loras and Renly, who showed up a while after they did. Renly thinks it’s like a reunion of friends and hugs her and she stutters out a greeting and drinks more. Loras tells her she ought to condition her hair more often and pinches a lock between his fingers with a frown. Sansa rescues her, dances her in a clumsy circle, and her and Margaery sling their arms around her neck and muscle her to another couch.

“Have you got a boyfriend, Brienne?” Margaery asks, her voice is soft as cotton wool and, try as she might, Brienne can’t hear anything cruel in her question. She still wonders why this is always the first question.

“I...don’t, no,” Brienne says, downing the dregs in her glass. _Not now, not ever_ she adds silently. “Do you?”

“Me and Sansa both dated the _same boy_ recently, we’ve sworn off guys for a long time.”

“He was a _shit_ ,” Sansa hisses.

“The...the Lannister...someone related to Jaime,” Brienne’s cheeks warm and she scrubs at her hair and frowns at her empty glass.

“Exactly.”

“I have to call him,” Brienne says and she’s lurches to her feet. Sansa and Margaery laugh like songbirds as she crosses the room. She’s in the bathroom with the door locked before they think to call after her. She’s sat on the cold tiled floor and dialing his number before her thoughts can catch up with her. He doesn't pick up.

“This isn't Jaime, leave a message.” 

Brienne scowls, almost hangs up but is startled into action by the beep of the answering machine.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts. “I mean, this is Brienne, Petyr said I should apologise for today so, that was it...the apology.” If he were really on the other end she might demand an apology from him too, for being like he always is, for not expecting it. “You’re an asshole,” she finishes with satisfaction, because it seems like a good idea and because even his answering machine had been obnoxious and because she _can’t_ demand the apology she deserves. She presses her whole palm against the keypad of her phone to end the call and drops it to the floor. She wants to lie down, press her face against the tiles. Instead, she gets to her feet, picks her phone up, and leaves. Doesn’t say goodbye to Sansa or Margaery or Renly or Loras, just slips out the front door and into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually like and-then-night-fell/fade-to-black chapter endings but apparently I'm doing them in this. Hopefully I'll get out of the habit soon! I hope you like it :)


	3. Chapter 3

Brienne spends her morning sitting in her shower, dejectedly switching it from hot to cold until the hot runs out and the cold becomes unbearable. Her head throbs and her stomach churns and her breakfast is water and crackers and painkillers. _This_ is why she doesn't usually drink. She briefly considers her morning swim but the thought of leaving her house fills her with dread and instead she cocoons herself in a blanket on her sofa and glares at the television.

At around lunchtime her phone rings. She stares at Jaime’s name on the screen and she thinks that hearing his voice might actually make her throw up and she doesn't answer. _He_ doesn't leave a message and the message she left him haunts her, making her headache sharper and her nausea slicker. _You’re an asshole_ , she’d said, almost certainly true but also likely to get her fired. She wonders if he’s told Petyr yet, if he’s played it to Petyr yet, and she miserably nibbles at a cracker until the burning acid knot in the back of her throat fades.

By the time she has to leave for work all that’s left of her hangover is an uncomfortable prickling behind her eyes and a dry mouth, but her stomach still churns with nerves at seeing Jaime again, at what he might _say_. She plays the message over and over in her head and it never sounds any better. 

Sansa accosts her before she even reaches the changing room and her expression is fierce.

“We didn't know where you were,” she says, sounding for all the world like she’s actually concerned. Brienne blinks.

“I...I didn't think you would notice that I had left,” she says. It’s the truth, it hadn't even occurred to her really, that people might be concerned for her, _worry_ for her. She isn't used to it. Sansa glares at her like she’s offended or like she’s disappointed.

“Stupid,” she murmurs and with a twitch of her fingers she’s off toward her own dressing room, soft lights and thick velvet. Brienne wonders vaguely if she’s ruined their tentative friendship already and her stomach twists at the thought and she swallows it.

Petyr is waiting in her dressing room, cold tiles and metal.

“This room is for women,” Brienne says, so quiet he couldn't possibly hear, but he arches his eyebrow like he has, stays seated, waits for her to cross the room. She is fairly sure he doesn't blink. He is wearing that tiny smile that tells her something awful is going to happen.

“You’ll be a wench tonight,” he says. She flinches at the word but doesn't really understand, thinks it’s some terrible joke that he’s planned with Jaime, some punishment for a drunken voice mail. It might be a better punishment than losing her job but it doesn't stop her fists clenching or the image of her breaking his nose flit through her head.

“What?” her voice comes out a squeak, more scared than she really is. 

“A _wench_ ,” he says slowly. “One of the waitresses.”

“Oh,” she whispers. She thinks of the girls with their low cut dresses and flowers in their hair carrying trays of drinks on their palms like it’s fixed there. The way they move, hips swaying and diamond eyed. She thinks of how her hands will shake and how she’ll be wearing a dress and she feels sick all over again. “Okay.”

“Report to Ygritte in the kitchens.” And he’s gone, a shadow flitting passed, some wraith who carries only bad news. For a moment Brienne considers bolting, running home and hiding in her bedroom until she forgets people like Petyr Baelish and Jaime Lannister exist. But she swallows that too, she closes her eyes and she breathes deep and she heads toward the kitchen. She will do her job.

Ygritte has red hair and a crooked smile and is already dressed in a tightly laced green dress with an apron and milkmaid braids. 

“So you’re our replacement wench today, huh?” she asks, eyeing Brienne up dubiously. “Can’t say you look the part.”

“No...I’m usually a knight,” Brienne says awkwardly. She can’t look away from the dress, nipped in at the waist with a full skirt and a white blouse underneath with puffed sleeves that leave the shoulders bare. 

“”The blue one right? The one we’re supposed to hate?” Ygritte grins. “Don’t tell them out there that, they’ll likely throw you back in the ring.”

“Joy,” Brienne sighs.

Ygritte pulls her around the kitchen by the wrist, showing her the trays, the gloves, everything she’ll be carrying back and forth. She tries to balance an empty tray with her shaking hands and it topples immediately and Ygritte purses her lips and makes her trip backwards and forwards until she can do it. There is a script for the wenches too, _my name is Brienne, I’ll be your serving wench_ , and Brienne mumbles the lines over and over and stumbles at her curtsey and Ygritte’s frown deepens. It’s worse because Brienne is not clumsy, not when she’s fighting or swimming or riding, it’s only when she’s thrust into situations like this that her feet stick and her limbs tangle and all she can think is that if only she had more _time_ , even in a dress and bigger than everyone else, she could learn now to _do this_.

“It’ll all come together with the dress,” Ygritte declares and Brienne almost laughs.

The dress is almost identical to Ygritte’s except it’s blue. Brienne is relieved for a moment, she’s been told she looks best in blue, by people who think they ought to be kind, _it matches your eyes_ , but then she puts it on. It’s too short, exposing several inches of ankle, it’s too tight in the waist and hips and too loose at the top, gaping over her non existent breasts and stretched everywhere else. It makes her bare shoulders look even wider and her waist even thicker and her entire frame larger, an enormous rectangle in a dress that is somehow too big and too small all at once. Brienne thinks of Jaime and Petyr, imagines a thousand tortures for them, but none are so bad as her wearing this dress.

“ _Well_ ,” Ygritte says, sounding vaguely stunned. “That’s that, I guess. We’ll give you a scarf for your hair and...and, fuck it, you’ll get through it.”

“This is worse than prom,” Brienne mutters.

And it gets worse still. The customers come in with their flags and their sides decided for them and she is there waiting with a pad and pencil and a list of beverages rolling over and over in her head. She’s in a section dedicated to supporting Jaime and isn't _that_ just perfect? Crimson and gold flags are waved aggressively by children and she wants to snap them all and stamp them into dust. Instead she plasters a smile across her face and ignores the people who double take when they see her and curtseys to everyone and only wobbles for a moment. Her revenge will be getting through this unscathed, she thinks viciously.

She doesn't drop her first tray of drinks and she grins at the kids and they giggle in return and brandish their flags at her like swords. The show starts and it’s declared that the Blue Knight is a coward, has fled, and he remaining knights, good and true, must compete to see who will bring her to justice. Brienne watches Jaime for a moment, fierce grace and reckless power, her section screams for him and girls cup their hands to whisper about him and she wonders who he will give his rose to.

A group of guys get too drunk on the beer she brings them. One of them thinks her presence is an insult and he sneers and his face gets uglier as he gets drunker. He grabs her wrist as she passes them carrying drinks for another table.

“You’re supposed to be hot,” he snarls, his beer breath hot on her face. She drops the glass she’s carrying and her hand smashes into the table and a pitcher falls too. She tears herself from his grasp. “Or at least have tits.” Her hand drips blood as she stumbles back to the kitchen.

Ygritte bandages her cut and moves the guys into her section and mutters horrifying insults under her breath.

“You’ll need to clean up the glass,” she tells Brienne but her eyes are soft and Brienne nods.

The rest of the show is nothing, the roar of her heartbeat in her ears, laughter somewhere in the background. _Her revenge will be getting through this unscathed_. She curtseys as the lights go up and she smiles and she takes the flag a child fives her and shoves it through the band of her apron. She steers them clear of broken glass. 

“I think you should stick to hitting things with swords,” Ygritte tells her, coming out when the arena is empty and grey. “You have to have thick skin to be a waitress.” And it’s obviously a joke but Brienne can’t bring herself to laugh. “Do you need help?”

“No, thank you.” Ygritte leaves with a wave and a half smile and Brienne is left in the grey alone. She sweeps up the glass from the pitcher and the bottle, kneels down to pick up the largest pieces. She can’t remember if Jaime won tonight.

“Wench!” 

Brienne thinks she might be imagining his voice at first, but he calls again and she presses the heels of her palms into her eyes until she sees stars and gets to her feet. Jaime is sat on the stage across the sawdust, leaning back on his hands and grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“What do you want?”

“Nice dress,” he cocks his head to one side. “Blue suits you.”

“Shut up,” she snaps. She walks down the steps and out onto the sawdust, crosses over to the stage. “This,” she holds up her bandaged palm. “And this,” she tugs irritably at the dress as it tangles around her ankles, “ _are your fault_.”

“My fault?” his eyes linger for a moment on her hand. “I wondered where you were, then I saw the big wench in the stands, like a cow among pigeons.” She hits him then, slaps him sharply across the face and he grimaces against the blow and her hand stings. “That was rude, I’m sorry.”

“You’re...you’re an asshole.”

“I know,” he grins at her. His cheek is reddening, a dark, angry flush. “ _You_ hit me with a sword.”

“It wasn't a real sword,” she sniffs. “You deserved it.”

“You’re wearing my colours,” he points to the flag at her waist and she scowls but doesn't move it. “I liked that message you left me.” 

“Shut up,” she smooths down the pockets of her apron. “I thought you must have played it to Petyr, for him to assign me this tonight.”

“Nope, that was all him. He likes cruel and unusual punishments.” 

“He’s punished you has he?” she rolls her eyes. “Maybe made you lose a bout to Jon or Loras a couple of times? You must have been devastated.”

“You don’t have to let him do it, you know. He can’t just stick you wherever he wants, you trained to be a knight.”

“I _am_ knight,” she snaps. “And what do you care?” She kicks the side of the stage, lets the hollow boom drown out the way her heartbeat is leaping in her throat.

“Oh, I don’t,” he laughs. “But I don’t like Petyr Baelish all that much either.” Brienne doesn't say anything to that, doesn't tell him she’s surprised, that she thought they were close, that Petyr was part of the reason Jaime was so golden. She doesn't ask because she knows he wants her to and he watches her through his eyelashes and she tilts her chin and takes any victory she can get.

“You weren’t hurt...yesterday?” she asks. She shouldn't care, she _doesn't_. He presses a hand to his chest.

“I've a rather nasty bruise, right over my heart,” his fingers splay, his mouth twists. “It’s only fitting.”

“I don’t understand,” Brienne frowns, looks at the way his fingers grasp at the fabric of his t-shirt, the shadows under his eyes still, the way his mouth falls at the edges. He gets to his feet, jumping lightly down from the stage to stand next to her.

“You weren't the only woman to hurt me there,” he laughs and it sounds like striking sparks from metal. “Goodnight wench.” And he strides across the sawdust and out. Brienne returns to the stands and cleans up the rest of the glass and doesn't even try to decipher their conversation, broken hearts and bruises. She hopes his face won’t come out in a mark to incriminate her. 

At home she tacks the flag she was given to the pin board in her bedroom, next to the programme from her first show as a knight and a flyer from her only ever choir performance and a faded photograph of her father. Mementos of the scant social life she’s had. It’s the brightest thing there, vivid red with a golden lion, and she scowls at it and tells herself it will serve as a reminder of everything she doesn't want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you all, thank you for being so lovely and saying such lovely things. Hope you like this!


	4. Chapter 4

Jaime Lannister is in her bedroom and he’s as naked as the day he was born. The room is filled with sun and Jaime’s hair is like a halo and his skin is golden and smooth and Brienne can’t move. He’s looking at her like he’s won some prize. He walks to her and she realises vaguely that she’s naked too but it seems so unimportant with him there. He reaches for her, his fingertips trace her collarbone, over her shoulder, down her arm. She’s never been touched like this, she can feel his skin like pins and needles in her flesh and she’s sure it will catch alight. 

When he kisses her she thinks she will melt to the floor in a puddle, but she doesn't. She kisses back instead and she tangles her hands in his hair and it’s white hot like lines of fire. She lies back on her bed and he kisses every inch of her and her toes curl and her fingers stretch and she wakes up with a gasp to her phone ringing. Blindly she grabs for it, mumbles a greeting.

“Ahah!” Jaime cries and Brienne’s skin burns and she chokes on everything she might have said because his voice brings her dream starkly into reality. She almost drops her phone. _He was on my bed and he had no clothes on_.

“Why do you insist on... _tormenting_ me,” she hisses finally, far more venom in her voice than she intended, terror and lust and anger. She wants to throw her phone away, fling it across the room and smash it into a thousand pieces. He is silent for a moment and she knows he’s heard it, something vicious and heated in her tone.

“You love it,” he says finally, but his laugh is slightly uncertain. Brienne almost hangs up on him, thinks that if she’s fast enough she can go back to sleep and forget anything ever happened. It was just a kiss. A naked kiss. _One hundred naked kisses_. But she doesn't, she smooths down her duvet over her thighs. 

“What do you want?”

“Nothing, just missing your dulcet tones.” And this time she does hang up, but she listens to the dial tone for a long time and she imagines him calling back and any number of blistering retorts she might make. She imagines she hadn't dreamed of him all gold and lean and she throws down her phone in disgust and stalks to the bathroom to run herself a cold shower. 

Brienne usually spends her weekends alone. She reads or she works out or she watches films. Sometimes she has tea with Catelyn Stark but not often. It’s not that she doesn't have friends, it’s that they have all drifted off, became the sort of people she sends birthday emails to, a couple of lines, nothing more. She regrets it sometimes, that she has lost them all somewhere, but she thinks they probably wouldn't be friends now anyway, they've grown up different and anything they had in common once has gone. So she reads her trashy romance novels and her medieval poetry and she _potters about_ , an old woman at twenty five.

Sansa calls her in the afternoon, tells her she _must_ come to a party Margaery’s having. _Everyone will be there_. Brienne agrees because she stills feel bad about disappearing from Sansa’s house and because sometimes trashy romance novels and medieval poetry aren’t really enough. She has been lonely for as long as she can remember. 

She wears jeans and t-shirt and Sansa tuts at that but doesn’t actually say anything, even hugs her in greeting. Sansa is dressed in silver and seeing her like that, so beautiful, makes Brienne wonder what it’s like. She thinks her dream of Jaime might not be so absurd if she were beautiful. She bites her lip at the thought, hard enough to cut through pointless flights of fancy (and she doesn't even _like_ Jaime anyway), and smiles at Sansa and follows her out.

Margaery lives in an apartment building covered in climbing roses. There’s a courtyard in the centre with a pond and fish and a fountain and everything is green and lush and in the dark the plants cast shadows like demons in the brick walls. Sansa looks like a queen in the moonlight and Brienne plucks a rose from the vine and twirls it between her fingers. Inside there are scarves thrown over light bulbs casting faded colours into the air and so many people Sansa has to grab Brienne’s hand to keep them together. But still Brienne stumbles into people and murmurs apologies with her cheeks tinged red. Because this is something new, something she still hasn't learnt, like wearing a dress properly, like acting like she doesn't care.

Most of the people Brienne doesn't know. But Loras and Renly smile at her from some shadowy corner and Jon is there too being tugged around by Ygritte who laughs the loudest at any joke.

“I told those guys off,” she announces when she sees Brienne. “I went after them and told them not to come back, my boyfriend has a sword.”

“I could have done that,” Brienne protests. “I’m not defenceless.”

“Oh no, you’re a _knight_ ,” Ygritte smirks. “But I doubt you would have done a thing if you hadn't been cut.” And she rolls her eyes and wiggles her fingers and drags Jon somewhere else.

“You’re popular,” Sansa smiles and Brienne laughs.

Jaime is sitting on a small couch, wedged against a disgruntled looking woman in a red dress with long hair even more golden than his. He is waving a bottle around and grinning with all his teeth and all Brienne can think of is the way he smiled in her dream and how his skin has looked in dusty sunlight. She turns away but of course it’s too late.

“Wench! Splendid! Come and sit with me,” he cries, gesturing her forward with the bottle. Next to him the woman stares at her with unmasked hostility. 

“Jaime,” she says. “She is _not_ sitting with us.”

“I’m not sitting with you,” Brienne agrees and Jaime struggles to sit up straighter.

“You _wound_ me,” he cries, pressing the hand clutching the bottle to his chest, looking staggered that she would refuse him. Brienne thinks of the bruise on his heart. “I merely ask for the pleasure of your company and you _insult my honour_.”

“ _That’s_ from the script,” Brienne points out and he collapses back laughing.

“You’re right, you’re always so _right_. Sit with me.” And so, with a sigh, Brienne rolls her eyes at Sansa, who shrugs, mouths something that looks suspiciously like _shit_ and sways off. Brienne stares down at the lack of space between Jaime and his golden haired companion. But _she_ stands up immediately, looking on the verge of murder, and stalks off.

“Your loss, Jaime,” she calls behind her.

“Cersei,” Jaime mumbles into his bottle, spitting out the syllables like cut glass. Gingerly Brienne takes the place left, uncomfortably aware of how much smaller _Cersei_ had been than her, and the way she is pressed against Jaime.

“I seem to have scared off your girlfriend.”

“Not my girlfriend,” Jaime squints after her. “My twin, couldn't you tell? She’s everything I am but so much _better_.” Brienne feels a blush prickle her cheeks and she scowls at the rose she’s still holding, bruised and broken.

“Oh, sorry,” she mumbles.

“Easy mistake to make, apparently,” Jaime sighs and Brienne wonders what the _hell_ that means. His eyes look like bruises up close, green sea glass under a storm, and his hands are trembling badly on the bottle. She watches as he glances around the room a hundred times, looking for his golden haired sister, willing her back. She thinks she might be a tool in this, something to incite jealousy, but that’s absurd. Brienne would never incite jealousy in anyone, let alone someone so beautiful, and a twin sister isn't a girlfriend, no matter how golden. But still, she remembers how it had been his sister who kicked him out once and his sister who had kept him from Sansa’s. She remembers that some woman had hurt his _heart_.

Brienne plays with her rose and Jaime talks. He passed the bottle to her and they alternate gulps of burning liquor. Sometimes he steals something new and she drinks that too, but not half as much as he does.

“You’re better than me at work, you know,” he explains to her, deadly serious, not long into the first bottle. “On the horses anyway, probably off the horses too. It wasn't the same yesterday, with you off wenching.”

“Tell that to Petyr. I’m back on Monday, I’m not much of a waitress,” she talks to her lap and shoots glances as he flails and gestures and emphasises with all of him. “ _You’re_ the golden boy.”

“I am aren't I,” he laughs, his nose wrinkling just a little. “How horrifying. But even so, can’t piss off the boss.”

“Of course not.” 

“You didn't let me finish. Can’t piss off the boss _unless_ you’re the Wench.”

“That’s not my title, Jaime.”

“ _Blue Wench_ ,” he hisses, apparently delighted that she’s arguing. He leans closer and she presses herself hard against the arm of the couch. “The lady...the lady Sansa, she dated Joff and I didn’t...Margery too. I didn’t _tell them_ ,” he looks distraught, he drinks deeply. 

“ Didn't tell them what?” Brienne asks. She thinks of Sansa’s shadowed face and Margery’s anger.

“You would have fixed it, you’re the hero type,” he grins at her but it falls flat. “Not like me.” He’s quiet for a moment, he drags his fingers down the smooth glass of the bottle, peels distractedly at the label. Then he’s smiling again, slumped into her and squinting up at her face.

“You know, if I blur my eyes you’re quite presentable. A blonde haired blue eyed smudge. You’ll never be pretty but...and your eyes are remarkable of course...” Brienne scowls at that but can’t help the blush. She _won’t_ pay him a compliment in return, not even a terrible half compliment, not even an insult disguised as a compliment. He knows exactly what he looks like. Lazy and lush and _always_ golden. A lion. It’s disgusting.

Jaime drinks more and more and Sansa drifts passed sometimes and Margery too but Jaime keeps her anchored. They talk for hours and the party moves around them. Brienne does most of the listening, scared that if she speaks too much and drinks too much she’ll tell him about her dream. But he is warm next to her and she laughs nervously at the things she says and offers quiet answers to any questions. He doesn’t mention his sister at all but his eyes search her out always. When Brienne starts fading, drifting onto his shoulders despite her best efforts not to, he starts up gallant.

“I think I ought to take you home,” he declares. Her eyes snap open and she’s on her feet in a second, swaying in the sudden cold of lost body heat. 

“I don’t need an escort,” she snaps and he shakes his head like she’s being extraordinarily stupid.

“Course you don’t. But you can’t stop me from _walking near you_.”

So he does, following her as she tracks down Margaery and Sansa to say goodbye. Slinging her arm around the brunettes shoulders and declaring loudly.

“If you see Cersei, tell her I’ve taken Brienne home.” And Brienne knows for certain that this whole night has been about Jaime’s sister. She can’t help the way her heart sinks, just a bit, and she hates herself for it.

Outside he weaves across the road, swaying and laughing and stumbling, and she knows that she can’t leave him. He’ll end up passed out in a ditch if she leaves him. So she lets him lean against her heavily, one arm draped over her shoulder, and he presses his face against her neck and smiles into her skin and mumbles nonsense under his breath. Brienne is a statue. She forces herself to think about the beautiful Cersei and not how close he is. If he wanted, he could be kissing her. She asks his address, she gets her bearings, she marches him home. She waits patiently when he vomits in a bush. She brushes his hair back with businesslike fingers. She opens the door for him when he can’t handle his keys, _this is the house he shares with Cersei_. She deposits him on his bed and he clutches at her face and stares at her looking so confused and disoriented. But he’s smiling as he breathes on her, his breath sharp with alcohol and vomit. 

“Remarkable eyes,” he mumbles and he moves closer and Brienne thinks that her dream will come true and he will kiss her. She holds her breath and she thinks he will kiss her. She parts her lips and she thinks he will kiss her. His hands fall from her face, he slumps backwards, he starts snoring and Brienne flees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading you lovelies :)


	5. Chapter 5

It has been a long time since Brienne has wanted to change her face. When she was younger she would press down on the bridge of her nose so hard her eyes sprung tears thinking she might break it into a different shape. She would _beg_ her father for braces, for _anything_ to make her feel more comfortable in her skin, and he would ruffle her hair and tell her something soft and sweet and so _fatherly_ she could only scowl at him. _Well I think you’re beautiful_. It would be more honest to tell her they just couldn't afford it. But she grows up and while she doesn't exactly grow into her looks she does get used to them. She sees her family in her features. Her brother had drowned when they were both children but she had his hair, brittle as straw and pale as honey. Her mother had died before that but Brienne had her freckles, blotchy and haphazard and messy, freckles a child might draw. Her father was still alive and she has his bulk, he is tall and broad, an oak even in his sixties. All of these things are comfortable and familiar and warm and maybe sometimes when people are cruel and beautiful, she thinks it might be nice to be the same, but it’s always only fleeting, less important than her family after all.

Today she uses how she looks as evidence. She stares at herself in the mirror for so long it becomes impossible that Jaime might have kissed her. Impossible because he probably has a thousand beautiful admirers (and _Cersei_ ). Impossible because her _remarkable eyes_ don’t make up for all the rest. Impossible because they aren't even _friends_. _Jaime Lannister wouldn't ever even think to kiss me_. She flicks soapy water from her fingers, dousing the mirror in droplets and splitting her reflection into a thousand blurry smudges. 

But the thought won’t leave her. Jaime’s eyelashes fluttering, the smudges under his eyes, the way his teeth had grazed his lower lip as he stared up at her. Impossible. _Impossible_. She attempts to drown out her thoughts with loud music but she listens too hard to the lyrics and there’s longing in the words and she ends up sitting on her couch in miserable silence. She thinks she might call him, just to prove that it was nothing in the derision of his voice. But he was too drunk and he might not remember anyway and she’ll _die_ if he laughs at her. She imagined it, she imagined it, it’s _impossible_. So she paces instead and she sighs and she tries aggressively not to think of Jaime but of course that's impossible too. Her dreams are of sea glass eyes and fall forward hair and she’s just glad he has clothes on this time.

At work he has changed again. He arrives late to the rehearsal and he’s grinning wide and twirling his sword as he strolls in and he doesn't offer any apology. One of his eyes is black, bruised dark purple and vicious, the whites stained bloody. Brienne almost drops her sword, wants to run to him in clanking armour, ask him what happened, tell him he deserved it, kill whoever did it. But he doesn't look at her, strides toward Dani instead, lets her coo over the injury and gasp and brush her long, thin fingers under the damaged skin. He says something to her, leaning so close that his hair brushes her cheek and she laughs and his smile fits perfectly. Brienne bites her tongue against anger, tries to look away from his hand on her arm and her nudging him with her shoulder but she can’t. He meets her eyes once, so brief it doesn't seem real, and she flushes and he runs brisk fingers through his hair, steps away from Dani, swings his sword.

“Fall pretty wench,” he calls to her as they face each other across the sawdust. She kicks her horse into a gallop and almost lets her anger win, almost swipes him off his horse with her sword, _almost_ but doesn't, and he laughs.

Petyr notices of course, and he pulls her aside between rehearsal and the show.

“After this you’re not to face Jaime,” he says. She twists her fingers, shuffles her feet, every schoolgirl scolded. “Every time you do something goes wrong. We’ll change the script, Jaime will refuse to fight someone with so little honour.”

“Oh,” Brienne says because she doesn't trust herself with any other words. She could spit a thousand reasons why he’s wrong but she doesn't, _this is her job_. “Right.” 

“Good,” says Petyr and with a tightening of his lips, some mummified attempt at a smile, he leaves her.

So she faces Jaime for the last time and she _falls pretty_ and he throws a rose to some smiling girl in the crowd. Afterwards she thinks she ought to talk to him, ask him about his eye or laugh about how hungover he must have been on Sunday. It doesn't matter, she ought to _talk_ to him. But he’s gone before she gets out of the changing room and she scuffs her boots all to hell walking home in anger.

In the morning he is waiting for her. Sat on the padded floor with a practise sword balanced across his knees. He scrambles to his feet when she strides into the room and she slows almost to stopping. His eye is still bruised but less so and his grin has a rueful cast to it.

“I thought we might bash each other to pieces,” he says, nodding at the sword, shrugging his shoulders all loose and there’s fear there somewhere, under his skin. Brienne chews on the inside of her cheek, looks at the sword and not at him, and she shrugs too but her movement is rigid and sharp and she makes sure there’s no fear there.

“Alright,” she raises her sword point high and she lunges. He’s ready for her and his fear drains away and his grin turns as sharp as it always is and the swords strike splinters. It’s not like their first fight, he’s not angry and wild, he’s calm and graceful and _good_. Brienne gives a few steps in surprise and his blade skids down hers almost to the hilt. 

“Thank you for getting me home on Saturday,” he gasps out as she pushes back.

“You couldn't have on your own,” she mutters. “What happened to your eye?” His blade falters, she forces it up toward his collarbone.

“You’re so _good_ ,” he says, and for a second they meet chest to chest, their swords locked, and up close he looks exhausted and relieved. _That’s not an answer_ , she thinks vaguely and she pulls back first.

They fall into a rhythm. Their swords dance and the room is silent except for their feet shuffling across the floor and noises of concentration and the fight in them both. It is _perfection_. When sweat is starting to sting Brienne’s eyes, Jaime starts to talk again.

“I was going to kiss you...you know that, right?” 

Brienne almost drops her sword, staggers backwards and only comes back when he gestures impatiently at her with his sword point. There is nothing cruel in his expression, he’s merely telling her something she should know. They come together again. 

“I was because I thought...I thought Cersei would hate that. You’re...you’re her opposite in everything and she would _hate_ that.”

Brienne slashes her sword sideways, clips his shoulder, sends him reeling. He comes back gasping.

“But you’re so _good_ and I couldn't. Then she goes and fucks Kettleblack anyway and he _hit_ me.” He throws down his sword in disgust and Brienne lowers her, watches him as wary as a cat. I was going to kiss you back, she thinks. “I've moved out though. For good. I’m not...I’m not her pet anymore.” 

“I ought to black your other eye,” Brienne says darkly and Jaime laughs.

“You really should.” He sits down, drags his fingers across the splinters on the blade.

There’s a long silence where Brienne isn't sure what to say, or if she should say anything at all. Jaime lies back on the floor, places the sword down next to him, threads his fingers together behind his head, closes his eyes. It’s only because he isn't looking at her that she decides she can speak.

“As much as I...don’t understand the situation with your sister, I’m glad you've left,” she says, choosing her words very carefully. She doesn't think she wants to understand the situation with his sister. She doesn't think she’s ever wanted to know anything more. It makes her sick to think of. 

With his eyes still closed Jaime smiles. 

“Me too, wench,” he says. 

Brienne rolls her eyes, kicks him lightly in the side, and when his smile widens she can’t help smiling herself. He opens his eyes. 

“So I won that.”

“ _You_ dropped your sword.” 

Jaime sits up, picks his sword, points it at Brienne threateningly. 

“But I still won,” he insists. 

“No,” she says peaceably. “Definitely not.” 

“Look at you, you’re shattered,” he laughs, unfolding to his feet in a smooth movement Brienne could never pull off. She laughs too and her skin tingles and her stomach is all knots. “ _I _won.”__

__“We’ll have a rematch,” she concedes. “Not now. Later...maybe.”_ _

__“Let’s get food _now_ then,” he leans heavily on the point of his sword. “Breakfast or...or brunch, I guess. Hash browns.” _ _

__“Hash browns,” Brienne echoes quietly. She thinks of sitting across from someone and smiling over juice and salt and pepper shakers. She thinks of people who might look at them and wonder what she was doing with someone so beautiful as Jaime. She thinks of checkered tablecloths and laminated menus and she thinks she’s probably blushing and she doesn't care. She doesn't even _like_ Jaime. “Alright.” _ _

__“Good,” he smiles and flicks his fingers at her. “Meet out front in fifteen.”_ _

__Petyr is waiting for her in the dressing room and she flinches like she’s been struck when she realises. He smirks, he cocks his head to one side._ _

__“You know, I think I remember saying something to you about not fighting Jaime.”_ _

__“That...that wasn't, I didn't think it counted, it was only practise.”_ _

__“All the same, I rather think you ought not to have anything to do with him from now on.”_ _

__“At _all_? I don’t think...you can’t possibly...” Brienne trails off. Her hands are fists at her sides, clenched so tight her knuckles bleach white. She relaxes them, stretches out her fingers and sighs away her anger. “Why?”_ _

__“Do you remember when Renly was fired?” Petyr asks._ _

__Brienne blushes, she looks down, her thoughts tangle Renly and Jaime together and she wants to wipe it all away._ _

__“It’s not the same, I’m not dating Jaime. We’re not...we’re not even friends.” I don’t even _like_ him. _ _

__“It will be you who is fired, not Jaime,” his voice is so mild in it’s cruelty. “Should this happen again.”_ _

__“Should _what _happen again?” she scrubs her fingers through her sweat dampened hair, presses the back of her hand against her mouth.___ _

____“I’m thinking about hiring another villain,” he says, like she hasn't said anything at all. “Someone for your side, or someone to replace you, or perhaps Brienne the Blue will have a redemption arc.” _I could reward you or I could punish you_. _ _ _ _

____“Oh,” Brienne says dully. “Of course.”_ _ _ _

____Petyr leaves and Brienne locks the door behind him. She showers quickly, turning the water up as hot as she can, scrubbing at her arms with blunt fingernails until her skin is striped red and stinging in the steam. She imagines quitting, she imagines some new job, uneventful, boring as anything. She imagines herself without a sword in hand and her fingers slip as she buttons up her shirt. She doesn't even like Jaime, it’s not a problem, it’s not hard to stop talking to someone you don’t even like. _He almost kissed me once, I dreamed of him naked_. _ _ _ _

____He’s waiting for her outside and his hair is damp and the top couple of buttons on his shirt are undone and she can’t look away from the hollow at his neck and the sparse hairs of his chest. She shrugs her bag higher over her shoulder, she chews at her tongue._ _ _ _

____“Hash browns!” he says happily._ _ _ _

____“I...there was...I can’t, I got...” she shakes her phone in her hand vaguely. “I have to go home.” Her voice sounds like someone elses, alien and hollow._ _ _ _

____Jaime’s grin falters and Brienne’s heart falters. He looks concerned, she wants to hit him, she wants to place her thumb in the hollow of his neck, splay her fingers across his collarbone. She wants to feel the sun through his skin and to make him smile again._ _ _ _

____“I...I’m...sorry,” she stutters. “I have to...” She shakes her phone at him again like it will tell the lie that she can’t put words to. Some unknown emergency, _a problem at home_. _ _ _ _

____“It’s fine,” his smile is back and she drops her phone in her bag so she doesn't see it. “Another time.”_ _ _ _

____“Another time,” she says, already walking alway._ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you everyone for reading and saying such lovely things. Hope you like it!


	6. Chapter 6

Brienne doesn't hate Jaime Lannister. It’s possible that she even likes him. It’s possible she even likes him more than she likes most people, more than almost _anyone_. She realities this as she eats breakfast for dinner and watches his name flash up on her phone. She knew before of course, in some secret, not-so-secret, place in her mind. She knew in her golden dream and in the way she had turned down the edges of his sheets when she helped him into bed and in their swords clashing and in him telling her his secrets. But she doesn't answer, just watches the neon light of his name until it goes dim and she thinks she’ll hate Petyr Baelish instead. He’s a lot easier to hate. _He_ is as cold as Jaime is warm. 

When she doesn't answer he texts her and she reads the words with her breath held behind her tongue.

**hope everything is alright. i’ll beat you again in the morning - J**

She deletes the message immediately, _viciously_. She buries her phone under the couch cushions and leaves the room. He shouldn't care, he _doesn't_ , he needs to stop pretending so she can start. She goes to sleep far too early and wakes up in suffocating darkness, terrified beyond belief, shaking with dreams of ice cold water and Jaime sinking into the black. When she wakes again in the morning she feels like she hasn't slept in years and knows that even if she had wanted to (which she _didn't_ ) she couldn't go and be beaten again by Jaime. Her eyes and her hands are too sleep deprived to wield a sword.

Jaime won’t be there anyway, she tells herself. Jaime will be in his new place, getting used to being alone. Away from his twin who is something else too. Cersei who makes Brienne’s throat hurt like she’s swallowed a bowling ball. She doesn't think that he might be lonely, that he might have no one now that he’s left his sister. Or how empty new houses feel and the way they echo before you've filled them with life. Or how maybe he just wanted her for a friend and how she hates that she can’t help. She doesn't think of any of that. Instead she focuses on how he’d used her for something that makes her sick. Sibling’s games and almost kisses. How he didn’t want a friend, just someone to make him feel better, a teddy bear for a child. Petyr saved her by splitting them up. By stopping it before she could be a teddy bear to save him, cast aside later with missing eyes and threadbare fur. She is worth more than that.

When her head is less sleep clouded. Brienne attacks the punching bag hung in her room and it’s too hard to keep Petyr from being the face that she’s hitting. The truth is in her reddened and split knuckles and her ragged breath. Petyr is the cold water of her dream and he will drown everything and smile. 

Jaime smiles at her too, when she arrives at work, and he looks concerned and expectant. _She had a good reason to leave yesterday. She had a good reason not to come this morning. She will tell me_. He holds the door open for her and she chokes on words she wants to say (hello, I’m sorry, you’re an asshole, _kiss me_ ) and stumbles passed him and into her changing room before he can say anything. She’s going to break Petyr’s nose for doing this. She’s going to stay silent and be good and _not get fired_. 

“Jaime will no longer be facing Brienne,” Petyr announces.

Brienne keeps her eyes firmly on her boots and not on Jaime who is burning her with his stare.

“He will refuse to fight her due to her lack of honour and out of respect to Queen Daenerys.”

Brienne rubs her thumbs across her forefingers like she’s trying to light a fire. She thinks she ought to lace her boots tighter, she thinks Jaime will think she asked for this. She watches Petyr and his eyes are cold as a snake’s and his mouth is quirked slightly, like this is everything he has ever wanted, like this will get him his heart’s desire. Brienne carves a fingernail across a cuticle as Petyr tells them they will have a new villain in three weeks. She will have three weeks to be the best employee in the world. Three weeks until she knows if she’s going to have a _redemption arc_ or be killed as viciously as Renly was.

She latches onto Loras during rehearsals and he seems bemused but not annoyed. He tells her about him and Renly’s plans for the weekend, romantic somethings, and she nods and makes self deprecating jokes about _her_ romantic somethings that he laughs at nervously. Jaime watches them like a hawk and beats Loras more viciously than he needs to. Brienne tries hard not to be thrilled by that. She remembers Cersei, she keeps her face carefully blank. 

Afterwards Petyr nods at her like he approves. It’s only Jaime, apparently. Brienne the Blue can be friends with any other knight and still be a villain but Jaime is _special_. It doesn't make sense, it’s cruelty without reason. She wonders what she’s done to make him hate her. 

“You’re so scared of being beaten by me?” Jaime demands as she’s leaving, his voice is almost swallowed by the crowd. All she can offer him is a shrug and he looks so fierce that she waits in her changing room until she’s sure everyone has left before slinking home. 

For three weeks she is the best employee Petyr ever had. She doesn't talk to Jaime, doesn't fight him, doesn't argue with him. He doesn't call her or text her but he tries to catch her eyes with his every day and she feels like hell every time she avoids it. He looks manic all the time, and exhausted. He’s adjusting to life without his sister, without _anyone_. Brienne’s stomach twists in guilt whenever she thinks of that and somehow she knows he hasn't told anyone else and she can’t help wondering why he would trust _her_ with that. She thinks that she might tell him all of her secrets, if he asked, and she banishes the thought with a thousand others like it.

Instead of going to work early to train, Brienne starts spending time at Sansa’s. They watch early afternoon soap operas and at first Sansa is surprised that Brienne enjoys them as much as she does but soon she is delighted. There is romance at Brienne’s core, the sort in movies that star Hugh Grant or Katherine Heigl, kisses in the rain and dashes to the airport and meet-cutes. Knights in shining armour and maidens fair. They breath in the ridiculous drama like air and Brienne is the perfect arm to clutch in the unexpected bits and the perfect shoulder to cry on in the worst sad bits and they come up with theories together when the credits roll. 

On the day the new villain is to start, one half of their favourite star-crossed couple is killed violently and this time Brienne cries too, unable to hold in this misplaced grief at thwarted, imagined love. They walk to work together with reddened eyes and laugh at how silly they might seem to anyone else.

The villain’s name is Vargo Hoat and his armour is stained red. He’s wicked looking even without it, narrowed eyes and scraggly hair and a cruel smirk. A perfect friend for Petyr. A storybook villain. He watches the rehearsal by Petyr’s side and neither of them say anything. Brienne doesn't want him to be on _her_ side, he makes her nervous, he seems like rusty water to her, thin and slick and cold with metal edges. He smiles at her with all his teeth as she swings her sword at Jon and she loses her footing and almost falls.

“The bloody knight!” Petyr declares when the show is ended and the crowd has gone. “Not a knight at all in truth but an outlaw with a penchant for violent amputations. Once allied with Brienne the Blue before she declared for the young traitor Baratheon, it is unknown if he will return to her.” He lowers his voice conspiratorially, “there are even rumours that they were lovers once.” 

Brienne can’t help it, she barks out a laugh at that then clamps a hand over her mouth. But Jaime laughs too and she meets his eyes for a moment and she grins under her fingers and he does too and it feels a step away from everything real, the warmth of a smile and a shared joke. Really she ought to hit him for laughing. Instead they just smile at each other stupidly and then Jaime opens his mouth to speak and Brienne realises that Petyr has fallen silent and is watching her and she scowls and she blushes and she bolts, hurtling across the arena in clanking armour. 

When she’s in her changing room, angrily stripping off the armour piece by piece, Jaime barges in. He looks wild and she knows she’s blushing in her camisole and boots.

“This is not...this is not...” she stammers and he slams a fist into one of the lockers and the metal screams and when he looks at her again he’s drained of everything.

“Stop this,” he pleads. His knuckles look like they want to burst through his skin, bleached white and red on the edges, blossoming delicate blue where he hit hardest.

Brienne’s fingers tingle and her ears roar, she thinks she might throw up or she might kill him or she might push him up against the locker he twisted and kiss him until neither of them can breathe. But she can’t look at all the pain he has, she refuses, it’s not her job to fix it, and she sits down on a bench and she stares at her hands in her lap and she’s silent and still until she hears his footsteps retreat and the door swing closed.

Later, when she’s dressed and rubbing at red-rimmed eyes and wiping away left over tears, it occurs to her that she probably hasn't cried twice in one day since high school. It’s such an absurd thought, her tears for a soap opera couple and her tears for a ridiculous person she barely even likes (doesn't like, _hates_ ), that she’s almost laughing as she leaves to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty to memorde and brienneofthrace for being the coolest guys ever :)
> 
> ty to all of you for being the coolest readers ever :) :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I just really wanted this chapter out there quickly?

Vargo Hoat won’t be in shows for a week but they do extra rehearsals with the new script and he seems determined to make Brienne’s life hell. Everything he says to her is an innuendo, scripted and unscripted, and he raps his knuckle against her armour and he tugs at locks of her hair and she is constantly on edge, terrified he will touch her.

Jaime _hates_ him. Jaime beats him terribly every time he’s supposed to and taunts him viciously every time he’s not. Vargo doesn't defend himself, doesn't even try, just laughs and laughs and blows kisses at Brienne and calls her his _paramour_. Petyr is always silent.

He’s to kiss her hand in the show. He’s to reveal himself and give her a flourishing bow and kiss her hand. Every time his lips touch her skin she clenches her teeth so hard she thinks they might shatter. He leaves a wet mark one day, he flicks his tongue out one day.

On the day of his first performance they rehearse and he is different. He’s all swagger, all confidence, and he jokes with Petyr beforehand and they laugh like something tumbling down steps. When he comes to kiss her hand he meets her eyes with heat and humour behind his and he brushes his thumb roughly over her knuckles. Before she can react he moves forward, tugs on the hand he holds and steps into kiss her mouth when she stumbles. His breath is hot and he’s grinning into her mouth like it’s some huge joke and she can’t breathe. She jerks away, he let’s go of her hand and she overbalances and falls, crashing into the sawdust. Her mind is reeling and she wipes at her mouth and when everything has caught up in her head she hears Jaime.

“You fucking asshole,” he spits in a voice like white heat. He lurches at Vargo, swings, clips his eye with a fist. But Vargo has a sword, heavy blunt metal, and when Jaime pulls back, Vargo swings and Brienne screams.

It hits him just above his right wrist and there’s a sickening snap and then blood on Vargo’s sword and on the sawdust and on Jaime’s skin. Sansa shrieks and Brienne staggers to his feet as Jaime falls. Vargo is hustled away by Petyr who is white faced and more uncertain than Brienne has ever seen him. A bone in Jaime’s wrist is jagged through his skin, bleached white against the blood. Jaime looks green faced and is shaking and whimpering and his left hand hovers over his right like he wants to seize it and shove everything back into place. Margaery is the only person who’s broken the rules about keeping her phone with her during work and she dials emergency services and her voice is clear and direct. Sansa is crying.

Brienne kneels by Jaime, presses her hand to his cheek, turns his face away from the wound. His eyes are murky green and sick but he focusses on her eventually and he manages a sort of wobbly, bitter smile.

“Brienne,” he breathes, forcing the word out in a sigh.

In a moment of absurd terror she thinks that he’s calling her by her name and not wench and he will probably _die_ from this. From a broken wrist and a savage gash and more blood than you’d ever think.

“Jaime,” she smiles at him as reassuringly as she can. “We have to take you outside, to wait for the ambulance.”

“You’ll come?”

“Of course.”

She helps him to his feet, keeps her hand hooked through his arm and lets him lean on her as they walk. He holds his hurt arm out awkwardly in front of him like it’s not his, blood drips in a trail behind them. Jon opens doors for them and tries to keep from staring at the wound. Loras and Margaery and Dani have dashed outside already to wait for the ambulance. Sansa has wiped away her tears and she watches Brienne, not Jaime, as they head outside.

The ambulance arrives in minutes, blaring lights and squealing sirens. Jaime’s face pales further, he scowls at the vehicle. The paramedics herd him into the back and Brienne is about to climb in after him when someone grabs her by the wrist, pulls her backwards.

“No, Brienne,” Petyr’s voice is cold as ice and she freezes in place. “I’ve contacted his family, they will take care of him.” And there is something about the way he says it, like _back off_ , that makes her pause.

“His family...you don’t understand,” she tries to reason but his expression doesn't change and she realises that he _does_ understand. He knows more Lannisters than just Jaime. The golden sister maybe, or someone else. The ambulance doors are shut and it pulls away and thinks she might kill him, she thinks she might rip pieces of him _off_. She turns and for a brief, satisfying moment, his eyes are wide in fear. Brienne smiles.

“I quit,” she says, her voice serene.

Petyr’s eyes narrow but then he nods.

“You can,” is all he says and that’s all it takes for Brienne to feel that instead of winning the battle, he has beaten her again. “We’re closed until further notice,” he declares to the rest and he turns on his heel, heads inside. 

Brienne thinks she might faint or cry or break her fingers with how hard she’s pressing them into her palm. But then Sansa is there, and her small hand tucks itself into the crook of Brienne’s elbow and she leans her head against Brienne’s shoulder.

“Come to my house,” she whispers. “I’ll make you chai and we’ll figure out what to do.”

“I have to go to Jaime,” Brienne frets. She can still hear the ambulance sirens.

“No, you are in the absolute worst state of mind to see Jaime.”

“He _asked me to_ ,” she protests.

“I don’t care, there’s no reason for you to go. It’ll just mean sitting in some room he isn’t in and waiting and waiting while doctors patch him up. You won’t be useful and he’ll be so drugged up he won’t even notice.”

“I...”

“ _Brienne_ ,” Sansa’s voice is steely and her fingers dig into Brienne’s arm. Brienne sighs and Sansa’s eyes light up in triumph and she hails a cab and they leave.

They travel in relative silence, Sansa leans her head on Brienne’s shoulder and Brienne tries to keep from thinking about the sound Jaime’s arm had made when the bone snapped. At Sansa’s apartment she makes them cinnamon hot chocolates with tiny marshmallows and throws all of her blankets and pillows onto her couch.

“How long have you been in love with Jaime?” Sansa asks as soon as they are cocooned with hot drinks and soft music and blankets everywhere.

Brienne feels drained, not at all prepared for _that_ question, not prepared for anything really. She tugs at fistfuls of a quilt with tight hands. She should be with Jaime, he _wanted_ her with him. _He got hurt for me_.

“I’m not,” she says automatically. “It’s a crush, not even that, it’s nothing.”

Sansa rolls her eyes. “Ever since you stopped talking to him you look like you’re fighting a war when he comes into a room. _He_ just got his hand cut off because some creep kissed you. The same creep he’s hated ever since it was decided that he _might_ play your love interest.”

“He didn't get his hand cut off,” Brienne murmurs.

“Whatever,” Sansa waves an impatient hand. “The point is, even if you’re not in love with him, which I don’t buy, he’s at least half way there for you.”

 _For me_ , Brienne shivers. “It doesn't matter, she sighs. “It’s complicated.”

“Oh piss on that,” Sansa snaps primly, managing to startle a laugh from Brienne. “You’ll stay here tonight and then tomorrow, when you’re less frantic, I’ll take you to see him. That way you’ll have enough time to plan what you want to say. Plus, it won’t be so gory by then.”

“Alright,” Brienne sighs, snuggling back into the cushions, sipping at the spicy drink, almost choking on the sweet marshmallows. “Tomorrow.”

“It’ll be just like the episode when Carla got hit by that car and Damian had to go to her and cure her of her amnesia with the power of _true love_ ,” Sansa sighs, fluttering her eyelashes and smiling happily into her drink.

“And I’m Damian?”

“Jaime _is_ mighty pretty.”

“And a shit,” Brienne laughs.

“Exactly.”

Brienne sleeps on Sansa’s fold out couch, buried in blankets and traumatised by dreams. Jaime breaks over and over again. Vargo kisses her over and over again. She _quits_ over and over again. When she wakes up there is a sour taste on her tongue and on her skin and in her hair and she’s scared Jaime might have forgotten her already. In the white-washed hospital, in morphine and stitches. She doesn't care, she shouldn't care, she really, _really_ does.

They take a cab to the hospital in the late morning. Sansa stays in the waiting room and winks extravagantly when Brienne asks the receptionist where Jaime is. She trips down sterile halls, aqua and white and grey and outside his room stands Cersei.

“You don’t mean anything to him,” Cersei tells her as soon as their eyes meet. She is beautiful even with scorn and anger and somewhere fear written across her face. “It’s a phase, he’ll come back.”

“He’s not a pet,” Brienne snaps and when Cersei smiles at that it burns.

But she doesn't say anything else, doesn't cut with any other vicious words, just stalks away, her heels red as blood on the grey hospital floors. Brienne pauses before entering the room, takes a breath, steels herself for a Jaime that hates her again, never stopped hating her, picks his sister every time. He is scowling like thunder and his skin is pale still and his hand is in a white plaster cast, carefully lying across his lap. There is a toy knight on his bedside table, sat on a messily scrawled note. There are no flowers or teddy bears or things wrapped in bright ribbon. Sansa made her buy flowers and they feel strange in her hand, she wants to hide them behind her back already.

He smiles when he sees her and her stomach drops.

“You brought me flowers?” he croaks, his voice sounding like he hasn't used it in a century.

“I didn't know if...I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't know if you got flowers for everyone in hospitals or just for women,” she shrugs. “They’re daffodils, I don’t know if you have opinions on flowers, I thought they looked... cheery.”

“They’re _breathtaking_ ,” Jaime grins, his voice getting more normal, sounding more like him. “I’m leaving later today though.”

Brienne frowns at the flowers, places them next to the knight, glances at the note. **Perhaps it is my turn to be the knight, dear brother** , it reads.

“This is from your sister?” she asks, and her voice breaks, just a little bit, and she wants to take every word she’s ever said to him and stuff them back down her throat.

“No,” he closes his eyes, his smile fades. “That’s from my brother Tyrion; all Cersei left behind was hatred and disgust.”

“Are you in love with her?” Brienne blurts, and that’s it, that’s the million dollar question. Jaime opens his eyes.

“No, I don’t know, once maybe. It’s something else now, it’s mutual hatred but she still won’t leave me alone. We never...it wasn't,” he winces. “It wasn't physical, not really, Cersei wouldn't _allow_ it. For a very long time we were all either of us had. We were home schooled and Cersei hated Tyrion and my father hated everyone else. It wasn't horrible at the start, she wasn't cruel. But we moved away when we could and she turned into something else, she turned into him I think. I lived with her alone for ten years, but not anymore.”

“Ten years of your life was for her?”

“More than that, all of it.”

“You must have less experience with romance than even me,” Brienne says weakly and Jaime laughs.

“There were some girls, girls that looked like Cersei, but it wasn't...and she would pick them for me.” He looks horrified by that, his eyes are deep and scared and haggard. “I thought,” he laughs again, a terrifying sound. “I thought she was _abstaining_.”

Brienne doesn't know what to say, doesn't think there’s anything she can say really. She looks at the daffodils and they’re too yellow, neon almost, she thinks she should have brought him something calm and blue, forget-me-nots. She thinks that Jaime is the most broken thing she’s ever seen, lying in his hospital bed with a cast on his arm and a toy knight and his sisters disgust haunting him.

“You think I’m a monster,” he says, like he’s realising his world has ended.

Brienne shakes her head.

“No, I think it’s sad and I think it’s awful, but I don’t think _you_ are those things. It’s...it’s hard to get my head around.” It’s the truest thing she’s ever said and Jaime almost smiles properly, without anything tainting it.

“You’re a rare creature, wench,” he leans back into his pillow. “And I’m grateful for it, for you.”

“You’re trying to fix something wrong,” she whispers, her voice almost failing her entirely.”It must be...hard.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Jaime sighs, his eyes drifting closed again.

“I’ll...I’ll let you sleep,” she starts to back out of the room and his eyes snap open again.

“Wait,” he barks, his voice cracking slightly. “I’m going to be discharged this afternoon, when the doctor’s seen me. I don’t want to...I can’t go back to my house, Cersei will follow me.”

“Oh,” Brienne says quietly. _Come and sleep at my house, in my bed, with me_. “You can’t stay with Tyrion?”

“He sent me the toy, Tyrion works fast, he’s out of town.”

“Out of town,” she echoes. “You can....do you want to stay with me?” her voice shakes and _this is the worst idea she has ever had_. She should be furious with him for making her ask.

“Only if you’re comfortable with it,” his eyes are wide and earnest, he is scared she will say no.

“Of course,” she tries to smile but she knows she must look as terrified as he does. “I can...do you want me to pick you up?”

“No, I’ll take a cab, just give me your address.”

She writes it on the back of Tyrion’s note, carefully printing every letter so the ink won’t smudge as her hands tremble. She hands the note to Jaime and his fingers brush hers casting shivers across her skin and he folds the paper up, tucks it under the blanket into his pocket. He smiles at her, a waterfall of relief and tired eyes and she smiles back, fear and hope and fear.

“I’ll see you later then,” she says and he nods.

“Until then, wench.”

The corridors seems less cold this time, the grey is warmer and the white is cleaner and the aqua is brighter. It smells more like daffodils than disinfectant.

“So, did you kiss him?” Sansa asks immediately. She’s sat in the waiting room clutching a cup of something pink and iced with cream on top.

“No,” Brienne blushes.

“Why not?” Sansa sucks noisily on her straw, so obnoxious it has to be deliberate.

“I told you, it’s complicated.

“Nothing’s _that_ complicated,” she says breezily, getting to her feet.

 _He’s a little bit in love with his twin sister who is also the most beautiful thing on the planet_.

“ _This_ is,” Brienne insists. But five seconds later she’s telling the truth. “He’s going to stay at my house tonight.”

Sansa shrieks, throws her arms around Brienne’s shoulders.

“You’ll be a proper Damian yet,” she says happily as they walk arm in arm through the automatic doors, and Brienne smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to memorde and frontally who are queens of everything.
> 
> And thank you, as always, to everyone who reads and comments and is the best <3


	8. Chapter 8

The apartment needs cleaning, Brienne thinks, peering around her living room. It needs _organising_ , it needs perfectly placed throw pillows and art in frames that aren’t crooked and definitely not peeling wallpaper and blu-tack marked walls. Everything seems slightly wrong, like pilling on a sweater, but Brienne has never known how to stop that either. She opens and closes and opens her linen closet, counts extra blankets and pillows and duvets, _doesn’t_ count all the places in her house where Jaime could sleep. (There are two of them, the fold out couch or her bed, three of them if you count the floor). She wonders whether the cast on his arm will keep him from sleeping normally. Perhaps he will need _help_ sleeping, eating, getting dressed. But no, it would take a full body cast to get Jaime to ask for that sort of help in any serious way, and that reassures her slightly.

He had given her no indication of when he would arrive. She checks she has tea, she wonders if she ought to buy biscuits and then aggressively _doesn’t buy biscuits_. She fights with herself about what Jaime really means to her, like she always does, he is sweet and funny and my _best friend_ , he is cruel and cutting and a _terrible person_. He is probably all of those things anyway, even without her tangled thoughts.

Sansa had dragged her to Margaery’s place when they left the hospital and had carefully gathered some roses and wrapped the stems in damp tissue paper. She’d given Brienne a vase too, tall and clear and fluid. She'd put the vase of flowers on Brienne’s coffee table before she left and nothing has ever looked more out of place. Crimson and cream and butter yellow roses with velvety petals on a table with cracked wood and tea stains and crayon marks made by her as a child. All of her furniture has been filched from her family home, most of it is older than she is and suddenly it all feels worn out and tired instead of comfortable and _hers_. _Jaime Lannister_ will have to make do, she thinks irritably. She tugs a rose petal off the flower, bruises it with her fingernails, drops it on the table and feels a little bit better. 

When there’s a knock on the door in the early afternoon Brienne lunges for it. She stops herself just in time, she tugs fingers through her hair, she fans her cheeks. It won’t make her look any better but maybe she’ll look less like she’s been waiting for him all day. He knocks again and she opens the door. He looks better than he did. Less pale, more cheerful. His arm is strapped high across his chest in a sling and there’s a duffel bag at his feet and the flowers Brienne had given him tucked under his other arm. She blushes at that, she scowls.

“I thought you’d forgotten about me,” Jaime says ruefully and she laughs, a terrified sound.

“That’s unlikely,” she mumbles. “Um, come in.” She moves awkwardly to one side and Jaime picks up his bag and shuffles passed, down the hall and into the living room. Brienne feels a thousand words creeping up her throat to her mouth.

“Does Tyrion know you’re here?” she asks. “Does anyone? How does your arm feel? Would you like tea or...or something else? I have cranberry juice I think...”

“Hush wench, slow down,” Jaime smiles, Brienne blushes again, scowls again. “Tyrion knows, my arm feels awful but I have drugs for that, tea would be heavenly, I take it sweet and weak.”

“Of course you do,” Brienne laughs.

“And you take it dark and bitter, I imagine.”

She’s smiling as she heads to the kitchen. She tries not to listen to him _settling_ behind her, sitting down, his belongings at his feet and easy comfort in his bones. He _would_ be the sort who is comfortable anywhere. Almost unconsciously she gives him her favourite mug, some terrible thing she got one Easter filled with miniature eggs, with bunnies and baby chickens in pastel coloured ribbons painted on the sides, faded by warmth and her palms. She gives it to him because it matches his tea, sweet and weak, and because she thinks it will make him laugh and when it does, she _beams_. He’s put his daffodils in with the roses, and it makes everything better, breaks up the perfection far more effectively than the bruised petal she left on the table.

“I quit,” Brienne tells him, the first thing she can think of, the _only_ thing she can think of. _They won’t work together_. “Petyr wasn’t going to let me see you and I...quit.”

Jaime looks delighted but only for a second, his smile fades quickly and then he’s frowning.

“You have no job,” he murmurs. “You _need_ a job.”

“I’ll get one,” Brienne shrugs. “It probably won’t be something I love but...it'll pay the rent.”

“It’s my fault, I never thought,” he sighs. “My family _own_ the restaurant. Usually...usually it’s Tyrion’s thing. He manages it, I swing the sword, my sister ignores it all and _looks pretty_. But I guess Cersei got her claws in somehow. I’ll bet my life Petyr’s been doing all of this for her.”

“You own the restaurant...” Brienne can barely breathe. She wants to hit him for not realising this sooner and for not thinking it was important and for not liking her enough to realise it sooner and think it was important. She buries her fingernails into her palms.

“My father does, he bought it when I showed an interest in swords.” He frowns again, drags his teeth across his lower lip. Then he brightens. “But it means I can _fix_ this. Cersei can kick and scream all she wants but if I tell dad her actions got my arm broken, she’ll be out in a second,” his mouth twists bitterly. “I’ll _always_ be the favourite. Then Tyrion can start running things again and you can have Baelish’s job.”

“What?”

“You’re perfect for it really. Everyone likes you, you have relevant qualifications, you’re friends with the head wench in the kitchens,” he laughs. “I’m going to enjoy watching that asshole get fired.”

_Everyone likes you_ , she doesn’t think she’s ever even thought those words. She feels giddy and scared and hopeful.

“But I could still fight?” she asks breathlessly.

“Of course, you’ll write the stories. Brienne the Blue will be the _Queen’s champion_ or something ridiculous.”

Brienne could be the boss, still in armour and writing stories and winning battles. Her redemption arc could be real. _Queen’s champion_. But there is a part of her still that thinks this must be a trick. Jaime is curled up on her couch in her house and he looks so satisfied with himself, saving the world one damsel at a time, that she wants to hit him all over again. She wonders if that will ever go away, if other people fight with themselves too, not knowing whether to kiss him or punch him. He has the sort of face that wants both.

They spend almost the whole day in Brienne’s living room. Jaime phone rings twice and he ignores it both times and Petyr calls Brienne and she does the same. They watch television and they talk about music. (“Something you can dance to”, Jaime declares.”Something you definitely _can’t_ dance to,” Brienne retorts).

Their conversation is easy and fluid and Brienne thinks it must be a miracle she hasn’t stuttered to a stop yet. It must be a miracle that Jaime isn’t even carrying the conversation, instead it’s both of them, laughing and teasing and talking. Brienne sits on an armchair instead of on the couch next to him but the two seats are close enough that when Jaime hangs his good arm over the arm of the couch and Brienne does too, their fingers hover a second away from touching, like a held breath.

When it gets darker they get fish and chips from over the road and Jaime makes sure to order hash browns and Brienne pours vinegar on everything. She is less and less scared that he is there for some crueler reason than friendship and she relaxes more with every minute in his company. If he notices he doesn’t say anything, just smiles his sunrise smile and steals all of her chips.

It is late when they both decide it’s time for bed. Jaime takes a pair of tablets for pain and for sleep and they make him drowsy almost immediately. They fold out the couch together, make it up with floral printed flannel sheets and a striped duvet. Brienne resolutely doesn’t think about how her bed is easily big enough for two and far more comfortable. She does think for a moment of giving him her bed and sleeping on the couch but his grin is shit-eating like he knows what she’s thinking and she changes her mind quickly.

“You like...flowers,” Jaime mutters, dragging a hand over the pillowcase when everything is made up nice.

Brienne thinks of her worn out mug and the roses and the daffodils and thinks she must seem an old lady to him. At least she doesn’t have a cat.

“I don’t know, they’re pretty,” she shrugs. “Given to me by old aunts when I moved out because I’m a _girl_ , I guess.”

“Yes,” Jaime agrees. He moves to tug his shirt off and Brienne spins in place, her face aflame. Behind her, his laugh is soft. “You’re going to have to help me with this,” he declares after a moment, his voice muffled. All of her fears rush back.

“Like hell,” Brienne spits. “You’re lying.”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Yes,” she mutters stubbornly. “You can sleep in your t-shirt.”

“These jeans are going to be awfully difficult,” he mourns. “A lovely nurse had to help me into them this morning but I suppose you’ll do at a stretch.”

Brienne spins back, fierce with anger and embarrassment. Jaime has his left arm inside his t-shirt, stretching it out, his hand poking out the bottom, his hair is ruffled and his cheeks are tinged red and Brienne _knows_ he could do it on his own and suddenly she’s furious.

“You’re not an invalid,” she snaps. “And I’m not your caretaker either. I’m not _Cersei_ , I’m not going to baby you and give you treats for good behaviour. I...you can stay here because you’re my friend and because you’re....you _need_ to be here, but I won’t be mocked like that, it’s cruel.”

For a moment Jaime just stares at her in shock, and he looks ridiculous, tangled in his t-shirt with wild hair and his one free arm in a sling, but then he’s actually blushing and his eyes are lowered and he looks for all the world like he feels bad.

“I know,” he says quietly. “I’m not good at...not being an asshole, but I’m trying. For you. Even though you’re a little bit scary and a _lot_ fucking good which I’m... not used to.”

Brienne stays silent. _For you_ , she thinks.

“I am trying, and I’m grateful.”

“Good,” Brienne manages, her voice thick and gruff and embarrassed. She scrubs a hand through her hair. “Do you really need help with your clothes?”

“No,” he grins. “I’ll manage. You go and do whatever it is you do before bed. But come back, I’ll need you to sing me a lullaby.”

She bolts as he shrugs out of his t-shirt. She dresses in mens flannel pyjamas, checkered blue and grey. She brushes her teeth and then brushes her teeth again and glares at herself in the mirror. She looks tired, the salt-on-skin sort of tired after a day at the beach, exhausted and so happy and so _young_. Her eyes are bright and her hair is ruffled and she looks like the kind of girl she never, ever was. It’s strange, but it’s not unpleasant. 

Jaime is wrapped up in blankets, only his broken arm and his head poking out. His eyes are closed but he smiles when she enters the room and she smiles too and fiddles with one of the buttons on the shirt of her pyjamas. He opens his eyes and his smile widens.

“You have actual pyjamas,” he murmurs. “That’s _magical_.”

“You’re drugged out of your mind,” Brienne retorts fondly.

“Sit. Sit by me,” Jaime pats gingerly at the bed with the cast.

Brienne moves, sits on the edge, not far from him but not too close. He closes his eyes again.

“I’ll kiss you for real next time,' he mutters, so quietly Brienne almost doesn’t catch it.

“You've no one to make jealous anymore,” she points out, turning away from him to hide the traitorous smile that tugs at her mouth and the nervous blush that prickles across her cheeks.

“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbles and he closes his eyes properly and lets all of his breath out in a sigh, sinking deeper into the blankets and into sleep.

Brienne tiptoes out as well as she can, switches the lights off, falls asleep in her own bed thinking that she might like someone so warm as Jaime beside her. Thinking that she kept his flag on her wall for a reason, for hatred or for love, or for both and neither.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the lovely memorde who deals with all my nonsense. 
> 
> Also thank you for the comments of course, I get nervous about replying because everyone is so lovely and I will just say the same thing over and over again (ily/thankyou/aaaaah) but I really appreciate everything and I will probably reply when I work up the courage :3
> 
> Sorry for the wait for this chapter, I am going through a ~personal crisis~ of sorts and couldn't get into any sort of writing mood, hopefully this doesn't happen again!


	9. Chapter 9

Jaime is sleep rumpled and grumpy in the morning. He keeps fumbling with his sling and swearing when he knocks his cast against anything which is _always_. 

“I may not be ambidextrous but I’m not a fucking invalid,” he hisses at Brienne when she hovers too close. 

She blushes and winces and backs away from him like he’s some wounded animal. A lion with a thorn in it’s paw and she’s the mouse. He frowns and fusses with his arm and smiles at her when it’s settled. A scared smile, like he knows he should be apologising. She doesn't say anything, just makes him his tea and pretends not to notice the puddle at the bottom of his saucer, tea slopped over the side by a hand unaccustomed to holding a mug. She’d used the same word the day before, _invalid_ , she wonders if it has some special meaning for him, some cruel memory, or if it’s just the suggestion that he can’t do _everything_ that hurts. 

He had been in her dreams again. Jaime in the other room, so close and always in her head. She dreamt he was closer still, their heads bowed together, their hair mingling, strands of gold and yellow and white. His breath on her skin and his lips brushing her cheek, almost like an accident. Not like the dream where he had been naked and grinning with all his teeth and every touch had been so deliberate it burned. More like some scene in a romance movie where the light is soft and dreamy and the new lovers are attempting to _learn_ what each other feels (tastes, smells) like. Her own hands shake, cupped around warm porcelain and she blows on the hot drink so she doesn't have to speak.

Together they manage to tape a plastic bag over Jaime’s cast even though Brienne is nervous about touching him and he winces and mutters and won’t just let her get on with it. She wonders if he can feel her pulse through her fingertips as she plasters the rustling plastic down at the inside of his elbow. 

“Would you answer my phone if it rings?” he asks her, not even waiting for an answer, just disappearing into the shower with a flashing grin.

_Such a smile might make different girls swoon_ , Brienne thinks, but I am not those girls. She concentrates on tidying away dishes and folding up the couch and not listening to the shower and the way the sound of water changes as he moves. She picks up his cell phone and glares at it like it means to attack her.

“I don’t even like him,” she tells it, unconvincing even to her.

When it rings, she almost jumps out of her skin, throws it to the floor then lunges to pick it up. She is breathless when she answers, and terrified.

“Jaime’s phone, this is Brienne,” she gasps. 

“Is it really?” a male voice drawls, warm and amused. “What have you done with my brother?”

“Your brother,” she echoes stupidly. “You’re....Tyrion.”

“And you are the girl my brother is so enamoured with.” 

“No....no...I’m his...” her voice fails. She wishes she were brave enough to drop the phone again, snap it shut and throw it to the ground and tell Jaime she missed the call. “I’m his friend.” 

“His wench,” Tyrion says, sounding very pleased with himself. “And for Jaime, that’s a _lot_.” 

“Oh,” she feels like she is taking a test, like she ought to be holding her breath. “Jaime is in the shower.”

“Could you tell him to call me back?” 

“Y-yes, of course,” she stammers. 

“Goodbye Brienne,” and he laughs and is gone. 

Brienne bites nervously on her fingernails. _His wench_ , she thinks, when did that word stop being an insult? She makes herself coffee this time, scalding hot and black as death, and when the phone rings again, she is ready for it.

“Jaime’s phone, this is Brienne.”

“Where is Jaime?” the voice is female and poisonous and Brienne knows who it is immediately.

“In the shower,” she says, trying to keep her voice even, imagining steel down her spine and ice on her tongue.

“That’s not what I meant you idiot, _where have you taken him_?” Cersei snaps, burning through any resolve Brienne had to _stay calm_.

“I haven’t _taken_ him anywhere,” she retorts. “He came here because he wanted to get as far away from you as possible, it’s not my fault you’re so unbearable to be around. He’s --”

The phone is plucked from her hand and snapped shut. Jaime’s hair is damp and his shirt is buttoned wrong and his feet are bare and he looks scared around the eyes, blue veins show in his eyelids like spiders silk.

“Let me guess, Cersei?”

“Your sister is not a pleasant person.” 

“That’s putting it mildly,” Jaime grinds the heel of his palm into his eyes, rubs at his face like he’s getting rid of something distasteful. “Thank you for dealing with her.”

“Tyrion wants you to call him back.”

“You took calls from _both_ my siblings? You’re a saint, Brienne.” 

“Don’t you forget it,” Brienne mutters.

He grins at her in a way that makes her heart stutter even though she is one thousand times _not_ that girl. She meets his eyes for too long, long enough that his expression shifts, becomes solemn, open and clear. His eyes are a leaf caught in wind and he licks his lips and she notices vaguely how close they are, him still warm from the shower and her still prickling hot with leftover anger. He licks his lips again, his tongue curving slowly across his lower lip, his teeth catching slightly, his eyes never wavering from hers. Almost without realising she has the soft collar of his shirt between her fingers, her hand ghosting at the hollow of his neck and she’s about to move closer, about to do something terrible and stupid, when the phone rings again. Brienne starts, blushes, actually turns and stumbles away from him and into the kitchen. She busies herself turning the jug on and setting out cups even though she’s full up with tea and coffee already. It’s something to do with her hands, it drowns out her embarrassment in a clatter. Behind her, Jaime answers his phone. 

“Oh,” he says. “What do _you_ want?” 

She thinks it’s Cersei again and she will coo at Jaime until he’s weak and wanting and he’ll never look back when he leaves. She thinks it’s Tyrion and he will laugh and scorn and tell Jaime _that wench is ridiculous_ and he will never look back when he leaves. She forgets herself and scalds her fingers red with steam she’s listening so hard.

“You think I won’t tell my father, you know, the one who pays you, that you took orders from Cersei? That you hired a man who attacked me with a sword and broke my arm so badly it had to be stitched back together? Of course, he’s already heard about that, but he might not have the truth of it, and I will enjoy enlightening him.” 

Brienne lets all her breath out at once, places the water jug back in it’s cradle, dries the cups and hangs them from their hooks. It’s Petyr, it could only be Petyr. The venom in Jaime’s voice makes her smile. 

He hangs up quickly, only sharp, short words and the snap of his phone. He joins her in the kitchen, he drags his fingers through puddles on the bench.

“Fear of God, only way,” he explains, gesturing at her with his phone. 

Brienne rolls her eyes, grateful for his easy smile, the strangeness from before left behind. If his phone hadn't rung she might have kissed him, but instead it’s just another almost kiss that shouldn't mean anything. It does, of course, but his smile _is_ easy and it’s easy too to pretend that nothing happened before. No bitten lips, no heat, no soft collars caught between nail-bitten fingers. Just friends and talking.

“Tyrion will like you,” Jaime tells her. “You’ll be a good right hand man for him.” 

“Right hand woman.”

“Even better. You've got a knack for putting Lannisters in their place.” 

“I doubt it,” Brienne sighs. “Your sister scares me shitless and you’re a total nightmare.”

“I think you quite enjoy it,” he cocks his head to one side, a puppy dog, a sheep in lion’s clothing. 

She does enjoy it, but she won’t tell him that. Instead she shoos him from the kitchen, steers him to sit in the lounge and goes to claim the bathroom for herself. It’s misty still, and Jaime has traced lines through the condensation on the mirror. Vertical squiggles that weep tears down the glass. He has hung his towel neatly on the rack and Brienne has to fight the urge to touch it. Instead, she turns the shower on as hot as she can take, buries her face in her hands and groans out her frustration, the sound of the water drowning the noise. _This is bad_ , she thinks, this isn't some fluttery mixed up crush like she had on Renly, this is fluttery and mixed up but it’s also an ache, an itch, a scar. 

“I don’t even like him,” she sighs, and she steps into the steam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for how long this took and also it's relative shortness. Real Life is kicking my ass atm and it's hard to get in a write-y mood, but I am trying! 
> 
> Thank you everyone for nice comments and things, I will reply to them one day when I'm not completely overwhelmed by how lovely and nice they are. 
> 
> Hope it's worth the wait!


	10. Chapter 10

In the afternoon Jaime decides they’ll go back to the restaurant.

“To survey your new domain,” he declares.

Brienne feels sick at the idea. Sick about seeing Petyr, or worse, Vargo Hoat. Sick because she doesn’t even know if she _wants_ this job (her dream job, her _everything_ job), and sick because she’s never been asked if she wants it. But she’s still shaken up by Cersei’s voice and her hands on Jaime’s collar and him, steam-dampened and deadly and pretty as anything. So she mumbles some nonsense and follows him. _It won’t be so bad_ , she reasons, _at least Sansa will be glad to see me_.

They walk there and Jaime’s shoulder bumps into hers because really he is walking too close to be appropriate, but Brienne can’t even pretend she minds. She bumps him back and the back of her knuckles graze his wrist and all she can think about is how easy it would be to stretch her fingers out and tangle them with his.

But she doesn’t, and he doesn’t, and they walk on.

“I spy,” Jaime says, “with my little eye...”

“I’m not playing.”

“Something that begins with...”

“I’m bad at this, I’m not playing.”

“W.” His eyes are narrowed and his smile is gleeful.

“If it’s wench I’m going to hit you.”

“I thought you were bad at this.” His laughter is infectious and when she shoves him, hard enough to rock him to the side but careful enough that his cast isn’t jolted, she is laughing too.

_If this were a romantic comedy_ Sansa would be suggesting a makeover about now. Unfortunately she knows that no amount of dramatic staircase entrances, clouds of makeup and perfume, or ill fitting dresses will make her beautiful. Her friend won’t realize it has been _you all along_ , despite almost kisses and shared housing. _You make me not want to be an asshole_ doesn’t really have the same ring to it as _you complete me_.

“I don’t even like you,” she tells him mournfully and he laughs at that all the way to the restaurant.

Brienne has never really used the staff room, has never felt like she was allowed there, even though of course she would be. The staff room had worn couches and soft carpet, it was a place where Sansa left lemon cakes for everyone and Margaery left invitations to club nights she was throwing. It had never felt like _hers_ because she had never felt like theirs. She doesn’t know what she is now, watching soap operas with Sansa and sighing about romance with Loras and letting Jaime _live in her apartment_ , but the room doesn’t seem so alien anymore. It _is_ just worn couches and soft carpet and a pinboard with flags and notices stuck to it and people she would probably now describe as friends if anyone asked her.

She and Jaime enter the room together and Brienne’s step barely falters. Before she has even opened her mouth to greet them all, Sansa has barreled across the room and thrown herself at the taller girl.

“I knew you’d come back,” she mumbles into Brienne’s ear. “Did you fuck Jaime yet?”

Brienne chokes on her laughter, feeling her skin flushing red, and hugs Sansa back with as much force as she thinks the girl can take.

“Don’t even,” she mutters back and Sansa’s laugh is wicked.

“Petyr knows you’re here,” Loras says as soon as she sees him, before she can even catch the breath lost with Sansa’s hug. “He wants to see you.”

“He moves fast.”

“I’m coming,” Jaime announces but Brienne shakes her head.

“No, you’re not,” she sighs. “He’ll probably want to see you afterwards anyway, yell at him all you want then.”

Brienne leaves the room, ignoring the pointed look Sansa gives her, a sly smile and a glance at Jaime coupled with an incredibly obvious wink.

Petyr’s office is down a long corridor, further away than it really needs to be, probably to give anyone who’s decided to make a complaint against him time to change their mind. Only he could make a _hallway_ seem like a threat.

He’s waiting with his fingers steepled and his expression is so casual it has to be deliberate.

“Brienne,” he smiles tightly. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

“What do you want?” She tries to steel her voice as she had for Cersei the day before, she is gathering enemies fast.

His smile sours and his eyes narrow.

“I want you to reconsider quitting,” he says after a pause and his voice rings with sincerity and regret. She can hear everything he doesn’t say too, she’ll be promoted, she’ll be whatever she wants. But there are flaws in his tone, notes that fall flat and are too rehearsed to be genuine. Just like everything about Petyr Baelish. But she does hear one thing in his tone that she never expected. A tenor so slight she might have missed it on a different day. It’s desperation, a plea. _Tell Jaime I was kind_.

Brienne smiles.

“Why?”

“Because you’re good at this, because you belong here.”

“Because you’re scared of what Jaime might do to you.”

“You should be scared of what Jaime might do to _you_ ,” he retorts, any pretense of kindness gone in an instant. “I know what he and Tyrion plan for you, can you be bought so easily?”

“You said so yourself, I _belong_ here,” she replies, but something cold settles in her stomach. _They never asked her what she wanted_. But Petyr is looking at her like he’s won and she refuses to lose to him again. “And I think I’ll take your job, if you don’t mind.”

“The Lannisters only care about the Lannisters,” he sneers. “You’ll find this out as soon as you stop being useful to one of them.”

Brienne leaves without another word. The corridor seems even longer this time, a gaping throat to swallow her, and she keeps one hand pressed against the wall to ground her as she walks. If _being useful_ gets Brienne her dream job then she doesn’t care, if she stops _being useful_ and Jaime goes back to cruelty and indifference, she will _make_ herself not care.

There’s a newcomer in the staffroom when she gets back and she recognises the voice before she see’s him. Tyrion Lannister is not what she expected, not a younger Jaime, not impossibly perfect and impossibly aware of it. Tyrion Lannister is about four and half feet tall with green eyes, a mess of blonde hair and a scar across his nose.

“And you must be Brienne,” he says, walking over to her immediately. “I would shake your hand but it might look a little absurd, you are _stupidly_ tall.”

“It runs in the family,” she manages, the words coming awkwardly from her mouth.

“Ah, unfortunately I didn’t pick up that particular family trait.”

Behind him, Jaime rolls his eyes.

“Tyrion likes to pretend he’s a better Lannister than all of us.”

“ _Jaime_ likes to pretend he isn’t.” Tyrion smiles, but doesn’t look away from Brienne as he speaks. “So you’re to be our new Littlefinger.”

“Our new what?”

“Just a nickname I have for dear Petyr. It has everything to do with where he’s from and almost nothing to do with the size of his --”

“Tyrion,” Jaime warns. “There are ladies present.”

“So there are.” Tyrion winks and turns to the rest of the group, all of which are staring at him with open curiosity. “Now, for the rest of you... first of all for those who don’t know who I am, I am the one in charge of _paying_ you. But more importantly, an unofficial announcement is in order. Miss Tarth here has been asked to fill the soon to be vacant position Petyr Baelish occupies, I hope you will all be as pleased by the news as I am.”

Sansa shrieks but Brienne winces. _The Lannisters only care about the Lannisters_. Jon claps her on the shoulder and Margaery kisses her on the cheek and Loras claps in a circle and grins at her crookedly. Jaime and Tyrion watch her and their expressions are almost identical, definitely siblings despite the difference in their heights. Brienne thinks she might throw up.

“I...I don’t,” she starts, her voice cracking. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes and I’ll trot off and fire Baelish.”

“I...I didn’t even interview, it’s not fair.”

“A Lannister always pays his debts,” Tyrion smiles and Brienne’s stomach drops further. What does that even _mean_?

“I don’t know,” she mutters after a long silence where everyone is staring at her and all she can think about is how similar Jaime and Tyrion look, waiting for her answer. “I have to get some stuff from my locker.”

She turns to leave.

“Brienne,” Jaime calls.

She looks back for a moment and his expression startles her. It no longer mirrors his brother’s, it’s searching and fond and concerned; all of his attention is focused on her and nothing else.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she chokes out and she bolts.

In the dressing room she leans her forehead against her locker, glad for the cool metal against her hot skin. Thinking hurts, everything is tangled in her head. Her dream job and her dreams of Jaime and almost kisses and _Lannisters_ and debts and how little she really knows about where she fits into it all.

The door opens behind her and she knows it’s Jaime before she turns. It could only be Jaime. 

“How have you not yet figured out that this is a ladies changing room?” She smiles at him wanly. At least she is wearing all of her clothing this time. 

At least she’s not wearing half a suit of _armour_ this time. 

“Oh, I know.” 

There is something strange about him, some echo of his expression from before, everything locked on her, sharp and intense. He keeps swallowing, keeps dragging his teeth across his lower lip like he’s worrying out the right words. 

“What do you want then?” 

He sucks in a breath, smiles, and somehow she sees everything he wants in it. In the slow way his lips curve and the hot way his eyes are still on her face. She is not ready for this. 

Instinctively she takes a step back, stumbling against the lockers. In two strides he is in front of her, in two strides he is inches away from her. Something about the way his sling has his arm strapped high across his chest and the way the fingers of his good hand are carefully still makes her want to laugh. A terrified bubble of hysteria rises and she swallows it down. 

“Um,” she says instead. 

“Um,” he echoes, gently mocking. 

When he kisses her it’s slow, careful, like she might break under his touch. His hand rests at her jaw, his lips catch hers like a gasp and then he’s gone and she steps forward, trying to take back the connection. 

There’s force behind his kisses after that. He presses his mouth to hers, swipes his tongue across the inside of her lower lip, and hesitantly she does the same. She tastes the corner of his mouth and then, when his fingers grasp harder at her waist, tastes his tongue and the jagged lines of his teeth. Almost before she realises it’s happening she is hard against the lockers, the metal denting under their weight, and his hand is at her hip and under her shirt, warm against her skin. The sling between them makes it awkward and clumsy, more than her inexperience and her fear and her _want_ , and she tangles her fingers in his hair instead of holding him close, not wanting the wrong movement to jolt him into pain and out of wanting to kiss her. 

She doesn’t know how long it lasts, only that sometimes he breaks from her and kisses her jaw and her neck, presses her fingers to his mouth with lowered eyes, his eyelashes soft against his cheekbones. Sometimes she buries her face into his neck, drags her tongue across the sharp line of his collarbone. Sometimes his hand climbs higher under her t-shirt, brushing against the clasp of her bra, tiptoeing the steps of her ribs. 

“Take the job,” he mumbles against her lips, a thousand years later when things are less heated and their heads are bowed together. 

She freezes at that, pulls back from him slowly. His lips are kiss-bitten and his hair mussed and it makes her stomach swoop uncomfortably to think that she has done that, but she pushes it from her mind and steadies her expression. She lets all her held back fears come rushing in. 

“Why?” she asks him, her voice barely above a whisper. “So you can keep your brother from having to interview anyone else? So you can _save_ me? So you can repay some debt?” 

Jaime’s smirk slips, his dreamy eyes sharpen. He blinks rapidly, all hurt and confusion. 

“I don’t...I thought you would like it.” 

“You can’t buy me,” she says stiffly. 

“I wasn’t...” he steps back from her further, runs his hand through his hair. “It’s not like that, you’d be _good_ at it, and Tyrion agrees. He doesn’t hire anyone unless he knows they’ll be worth it.” 

“And this?” Brienne waves a hand between them, can’t meet his eyes. Absurdly she feels like she might start crying, her eyes burn and she hates that he should always be the one to prompt her rare tears. “This isn’t you trying to pay me back in another way? I’ve said it before, I’m _not_ Cersei, this doesn’t...this doesn’t make sense, you...you k-kissing me.” 

“I’m kissing you because I _want_ to, Brienne. It has nothing to do with Cersei.” 

“It has _everything_ to do with Cersei. You’ve used me once to get back at her and I...” Brienne stops, shakes her head, clasps her hands together as tight as she can, keeping all the words she desperately wants to say between her palms. _I dream about you, kiss me again, you’re an asshole, Lannisters only care about Lannisters, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me_. 

“You think so little of me?” His smile is bitter and stretched and tired. 

“I...I have to,” Brienne squares her jaw stubbornly but she can’t help the pleading note that creeps into her voice. “Otherwise...otherwise how am I supposed to protect myself? I don’t know where I fit, Jaime, I don’t know what you want from me.” 

He is silent. He shoves his hand in his pocket, rocks back on his heels. 

“I just want you,” he says simply. His voice isn’t sincere like Petyr’s had been; it’s sincere like he has never told a lie in his life. 

But it’s too impossible to believe and Brienne chews on her lip and can’t meet his eyes at all. 

“I have to...go to the gym or something,” she mumbles. “I’ll call the building manager and tell him to let you up whenever you show up.” And she grabs her bag with fingers still warm from his hair and his skin and she leaves. 

She gets back to her apartment before him, after sweating out as much emotion as possible. He’s not there but she makes the couch up nice and leaves the hallway light on and folds up a towel at puts it at the foot of the bed. She thinks he’s probably gone back to Cersei, crawled into her arms and begged forgiveness, _I made a mistake_. She imagines them skin to skin and it makes her stomach turn. She almost puts his flag under her pillow, a spell for good luck, a spell to bring him back, romantic nonsense from the books she reads. Sansa would approve. 

But she doesn’t, she just turns off her light, and her thoughts, and crawls into bed. 

Movement wakes her and her alarm clock reads 2:17am. Her hand curls into a fist and she’s sat up in a second, ready to fight before her sleep fogged brain realises it’s Jaime. He stumbles into her bed, crawls across the blanket to flop down on his stomach next to her. His eyes shine dangerously under the fall of his hair. 

“What are you doing,” she hisses. She remembers her dream, him unclothed and in her bed like he is now. “Get out!” 

“Brienne,” he insists, his voice slurred and his breath thick with alcohol. “I went...I went to Cersei.” 

“ _Get out_ ,” she snaps, louder this time. 

He sinks his head further into the pillow next to her, grunts in pain as his arm hits the bed awkwardly, and tangles his good hand in a sheet. 

“I went to the house and I stood outside...I couldn’t go in. I didn’t want to, I don’t want her to know anything about you, about me and you, I don’t want her to speak your _name_.” He exhales, a deep, shuddering sigh. “I don’t know why I went, to say goodbye maybe.” 

“But you didn’t.” 

“I didn’t,” he agrees, looking up at her. “I just wanted to be here, I wanted to be with you. This isn’t...you aren’t _saving_ me from anything, you just made me realise I could do it myself. And I don’t want to save _you_ from anything either, you can do all of it, I know. Don’t take the job if you don’t want it or if you feel wrong about it. I’ll make Tyrion interview other people for it, maybe they’ll be better than you but I doubt it. Don’t take the job and don’t...don’t kiss me or...or...don’t kiss me and I won’t kiss you because I would rather do none of that than have to leave.” 

Brienne is silent, she listens to him breath, the way it catches in his throat every time he inhales, the way the sound is wet, like he’s been crying. She thinks she wants to kiss him a hundred times, kiss the tears that might be dry on his cheeks and his disgusting alcohol mouth and his night-time hair and his knuckles and his palms. 

“Have you had any water?” she asks instead. 

“Yeah,” he mumbles into the pillow. “I might have broken a glass.” 

Brienne sighs, she wriggles herself back down under the blankets then carefully pulls them out from under Jaime and drops them down over him. He curls himself up into the warmth. His eyes flutter closed and his hand creeps across her arm, fingers clumsily stroking at the soft fabric of her pyjamas, with his cast hanging heavy down the side of the bed. 

“Don’t make me leave,” he says miserably. “Please?" 

“Sleep Jaime,” she says softly, reaching across to run her fingers briefly through his hair and across the plane of his cheekbone. 

He smiles under her touch and she leaves her hand on the pillow, a second from his skin, a second from his breath, and his eyelashes and his hair, and she manages to quiet everything screaming in her head. She shuts out the voice that says _this is a bad idea_ or _this is the best idea_ , and she decides she doesn’t actually care about jobs and sisters and _Lannisters_. She cares about helping her friend or not-friend or more-than-friend, and about helping herself. She cares about how those two things might be almost indistinguishable from one another. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone, as always, for being the best ever audience a gal could ever hope for. Thanks especially to Miss M who read this and wrote perfect, perfect comments on every chapter on a day where I was feeling pretty terrible. It really cheered me up <3
> 
> Thanks also to desidangerous and idesofapril for being super cool betas all around awesome people!


	11. Chapter 11

Brienne wakes up to the knowledge that someone is in her bedroom. She almost throws back her duvet, raises her fists, she almost barks out something cruel and cutting, she is ready for anyone. And in that split second of violence and aggressive defence and _this is my house and my life and my everything_ she remembers that the person in her bedroom is Jaime and that he isn't just in her bed _room_ he is in her _bed_ and he might be the one person she isn’t ready for.

She doesn’t throw back her duvet, she wriggles out from under it, not wanting to wake Jaime who has a hand curled under his cheek and his cast stretched toward where she had been lying. She doesn’t raise her fists either, just straightens her rumpled side of the bed and resists the urge to straighten Jaime’s rumpled hair. She barks out cruel and cutting words at her hot water jug and it splutters and steams at her in inanimate anger and she feels a little bit better about having her-friend-Jaime asleep in her bed, although not much better about having that-guy-who-kissed-her asleep in her bed. She scalds her mouth on her tea ( _dark and bitter_ ) and spits more anger at her jug and tries not to listen to any sounds Jaime might be making in her room. _In her bed_.

“Fuck,” she mutters, to no one in particular. She imagines the water jug sighing in sympathy.

In the bathroom something about her reflection in the mirror, about being the girl who sees her face for the first time _the morning after_ , makes it impossible not to smile. It’s all teeth and warm cheeks and she buries her face in her hands and worries it away by chewing on the inside of her lip. It’s not the morning after anything, it’s the morning after _nothing_. Besides, she’ll be damned if she smiles like that over _Jaime Lannister_ , like the girl who got kissed and who kissed back and who _let_ Jaime Lannister sleep in her bed. No, she’s just the girl who helped her drunk friend and who will interview for a job and who will never be beautiful and who will _never_ have a _morning after_ and who will not smile in mirrors ever again.

“You look cheerful,” Jaime croaks, his face swimming into the mirror behind her.

She shrieks, she spins away from the sink and takes a lot pleasure in scowling as spectacularly as she can and in the fact that Jaime looks like _hell_. His eyes are bloodshot and hollow as a skull, his hands are shaking and his skin is _grey_. He is detoxing from Cersei and from everything that comes with that.

“You can’t barge into my _bathroom_ like that,” Brienne snaps.

“I didn’t, I’m behind the threshold,” he grins queasily at his feet, neatly stood _in the hallway actually_. “ _You_ left the door open.”

“It’s my house,” she mutters darkly.

“Do you mind awfully if I throw up in it?” Jaime asks, his smile taking on a pained cast.

Brienne pushes passed him, _closes the door behind her_ , doesn’t listen to him being violently ill all over the bathroom and then _does_ because maybe it will stop her thinking about his mouth every five seconds.

“ _Lannisters_ ,” she growls nonsensically. Her water jug whistles in agreement and she pours Jaime a glass of orange juice in anticipation. Gets painkillers from her bedside table, pulls a packet of water crackers left over from her own stint in actual hangover hell, and places everything carefully on the table in the living room.

“Don’t you dare say anything,” she warns the water jug over her shoulder, left behind and lonely in the kitchen.

“Talking to appliances now?” Jaime’s eyes are glassy and his hair is damp but his grin is sharp as ever.

“Aspirin, juice, crackers. Eat them, the coffee is still brewing.”

“Yes sir,” he pulls a salute, winces, sinks into a chair with a groan.

Brienne sits opposite him, she taps her fingers across her knees like they’re piano keys, she watches them like she might miss a note. Jaime drinks his juice, crunches through the crackers so obnoxiously loudly that she knows it has to be deliberate, some aggresive attempt to cut through the awkwardness that fills the room. It doesn’t work, it only makes it worse. Brienne tries hard not to think about him kissing her, pressing her body against the cold metal of the lockers, his mouth hot on her skin. Abruptly she stands.

“Coffee,” she mumbles weakly and she stomps to the kitchen.

She brings him coffee and he groans so obscenely at his first sip that she almost slaps him. He has _no right_ with that face and the steam curling through his hair and his eyes closed and even half dead he looks like any girls fantasy. Her _friend_ Jaime Lannister. The one who kissed her. She drinks her own coffee in sullen silence.

“I’ll tell Tyrion you don’t want the job,” Jaime says after some time, his voice scratching through air thick with kisses and confession like it’s been torn from his mouth.

“I’ll interview,” Brienne says quietly.

“You’ll interview,” Jaime echoes. He grins around his hangover and winces as it hits harder. He looks little kid excited.

“But not with you or Tyrion...someone else, someone who doesn’t care who gets the job,” she amends. She drains the rest of her coffee, wonders if this will hurt him, this strange family and the way they exist, crashing into one another and sticking there like they could never let go even if they wanted to, _especially_ if they wanted to. Golden headed viciousness moulded into some sort of twisted nuclear family.

“Your father should do the interviews.”

Jaime stares at her, his face blank with shock, like he can’t figure out what she’s said at all, it’s too far removed from reality. Brienne thinks this will be the right way to end it, the only way. She won’t owe anyone anything this way, she will be an anonymous applicant who might not get the job anyway. If she does it will be because she deserves it, and if she doesn’t it will be because someone else does.

“That’s a fucking terrible idea,” Jaime gasps finally. “My father will _hate_ you.”

“ _Your father_ should hire the best person for the job,” Brienne says stiffly. “It doesn’t make sense not to.”

“He doesn’t care about that. He’ll be wanting someone who can actually make Tyrion give a shit about his job and who can let me be the shiniest, fucking _best knight in the land_. He’ll want a puppet, another Petyr but one who doesn’t decide to take orders from Cersei all of a sudden.”

“I have two out of three down, you just need to get better at your job,” she shrugs. “Thanks for the interview tips, I can _play_ that, Jaime. You seem to think I’m pure as driven snow but I know how to _lie_. It’s not like any of us have seen your father the whole time we’ve worked here. I didn’t even know he _owned_ this place until you told me. He doesn’t exactly drop in regularly for staff appraisal, not to mention your brother.”

“He’ll make you give reports.”

“Then I’ll _give reports_. I’ll do my _job_.”

Jaime runs a hand through his hair, presses fingers under his eyes, scrubs at his chin. He looks chewed up and spat out, a thousand times worse than a hangover in two minutes. Brienne refuses to think this means anything.

“You don’t know my family,” he pleads finally, his eyes meeting hers in a shock of pain and hurt and fear.

Brienne swallows, steels herself.

“I _do_ know your family, people like them have been trying to ruin me for years. At the very least, I know how to ignore it.”

Jaime is silent, she watches him sort this out, the pulse in his throat, the way his jaw tightens, he swallows and then swallows again.

“I’ll get the job or I won’t. I have other options, I made _some_ friends at university.” _I’ll do research for Catelyn Stark, I’ll flip through books instead of swinging swords, I’ll get Sansa to tell me stories of blood and glory_.

“You...you were born for this job.”

“Then I’ll get it,” Brienne says grimly, biting through all the other words that threaten to choke her. Everything else about failing and pencils on paper instead of swords and dusty fingers instead of calluses and, absurdly, buried somewhere in there where she is a little bit _that girl_ and she can't help thinking _I don’t want my potential romantic interest’s father to hate me_.

“You will.”

“ _Without_ your help.”

“And then after...” Jaime is next to her in a flash, knelt beside her chair, one hand hovering awkwardly above her knee, his cast in his lap, his eyes upturned and wide and wickedness in every disgusting, sick and sweat dampened hidden corner of him. “ _After_ , I get to fuck the boss.”

“After,” Brienne warns, her face flushing hotly (his hand falls to her knee, his thumb brushes soft against the worn flannel of her pyjamas). “You may ask me to dinner.”

And he smiles like that was all he wanted in the first place.

Jaime makes phone calls after that, and tells Brienne that Tyrion and their father, the _dreaded_ Tywin Lannister, are typing up a job description immediately. The position will be advertised momentarily. _Brienne’s_ position. She warns Jaime that if it fits her perfectly ( _blonde hair, blue eyes, must be six foot three and female_ ) she won’t bother to apply and Jaime laughs.

“I don’t think you’d fit anywhere perfectly,” he tells her, and it can't possibly insulting when his voice is so impossibly fond but she scowls in reply anyway.

They are careful around one another, despite Jaime’s flirting and his hand on her knee and his knowing smile. They circle one another in her small apartment and she makes up a bed for him in the lounge like she has before and they eat dinner together, plates on their knees, and the sun streams through the curtains all dust and fire and set’s Jaime’s smile slight. Brienne wants to tuck her face against his neck, breathe him in. She wants to spider her fingers across the breadth of his shoulders, down his collarbone, she wants to press her palms to his chest. But she doesn’t, she only scowls at him mostly and smiles at him some and mumbles _sweet dreams_ before switching off the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is unbetaed and I'm sorry about that. There is this thing where I'm a little bit homeless right now and lacking in basic human necessities like the internet. It is also part of the reason why this is so late and pretty short. Life is being very disruptive to my ~artistic process~~ but thank you guys for putting up with it and continuing to be the best readers ever <3


	12. Chapter 12

In less than a week, the job is advertised. Brienne applies the same day with Jaime peering over her shoulder giving advice and laughing when she ignores all of it. He has been her shadow the entire time, desperately helpful as he cooks her the only thing he knows (french toast) and worries that he can’t do more. She feels like Cersei, like the thing who has saved him, the thing who has him on a leash, and it makes her more vicious than she should be, _more_ like Cersei, and then irritated and confused and quiet when she realises. If he notices he doesn't say anything, just buys her takeaways when she gets sick of french toast.

“A Lannister always pays his debts,” he tells her gravely, his eyes sparkling with mirth, and she knocks over her tea trying to hit him.

He sleeps on the couch every night. He doesn't make a big deal about it, helps her smooth out the sheets and doesn't say anything when she goes to sleep earlier than him. Sometimes she goes to get a glass of water in the middle of the night and he’s awake still, flicking through channels, finding the right white noise. They circle each other like they have since some point she can’t remember. A point in time that must exist, maybe it started when he didn't kiss her the first time, or the second. 

During the day they watch movies and play cards and he is vicious at poker but so is she even though neither of them have very good poker faces. She frowns at every hand she draws and he laughs at all of his and they alternate in victory. She visits Sansa too, to watch soap operas and to vehemently _not_ discuss what Sansa calls _the Jaime Lannister situation_. 

“He’s sleeping on my couch,” Brienne insists when the topic is forced on her, because it’s _true_.

“Maybe physically, but mentally he is sleeping in your pants,” Sansa says gravely,

“That’s...that’s the most incomprehensible thing you've ever said.”

“It’s also brilliant and true,” Sansa sighs prettily. “You just wait, he’s going to keep making you swoon until you can’t even walk straight.”

“I don’t swoon.”

“No, I suppose you don’t.”

But Sansa’s gaze is shrewd and her smile is knowing and Brienne isn't hiding anything as well as she should be. _There is nothing to hide_ , she tells herself, nothing but some desperate crush, desperate lust, desperate _love_? Nothing at all, just desperation. 

She is called in for an interview. Not by Tywin, but by someone with the smooth, polite voice of a secretary. There are practised smiles in that voice, there are scripts in that voice. 

“I have an interview,” she tells Jaime. 

“Of course you do,” he murmurs, not shifting his eyes from the pile of cards in front of them. Snap is his favourite game. _Because of the violence_ , he tells her.

“Got any tips for an interview with Tywin Lannister?”

“Don’t smile,” Jaime grins like a blade. “He hates that.”

Brienne laughs hollowly and then the cards match and she slams her hand down, Jaime a split second behind her and her skin tingles with the contact, pain from the slap because he does nothing by halves and _something else_ from touching him. It’s the only time she allows it, touching with violence behind it is not the same as a kiss or held hands or hands under shirts. He fights her for the cards, pushes her hand away, uses _both hands_ , cheats outrageously. They grapple and laugh and the cards skid across the floor and no one cares really and they both silently declare themselves the victor and keep touching a little bit more than is appropriate.

Brienne dreams of fucking him. Pushing him against a wall, being pushed against a wall, fingertip shaped bruises at her shoulders and her breasts and the insides of her thighs. She blushes when she looks at him sometimes but the worst bit is when she doesn't, when she’s comfortable with these thoughts, with _Jaime Lannister_ in general. He has found a way into her life and she’s alarmed and troubled by how entrenched he is there and by how much she doesn't want him to leave.

On the day of her interview, she dresses as nondescript as possible. Shades of grey and black. As forgettable as a six foot three woman with the shoulders of an olympic swimmer is likely to be. She will let Tywin Lannister paint her as anything he wants, the ideal employee, one without any baggage. 

Jaime seems agitated, he wakes up earlier than he needs to, he makes her french toast and he’s far more careful about it than he usually is. He dusts it with icing sugar and he finds a flower outside somewhere, puts it in a glass on the table. It disturbs Brienne how _okay_ she is with that, a display of domesticity. She crosses her ankles under her chair, playing at being in the interview already, she purses her lips and eats her breakfast in tiny, prim bites.

“Good luck,” he says later, as she readies herself to leave. For a moment he looks like he wants to say something more but he frowns instead, nods vaguely. “Good luck,” he repeats. “Don’t let him bully you.”

“I won’t,” Brienne says, smiling. “Thank you.”

“You deserve this,” Jaime is moving forward, twisting his fingers together, running a thumb across the rough edge of his cast. “You deserve this and you’ll be _good_ at this.”

“I know, Jaime,” Brienne smiles again, slightly uncertain, wondering at the way his eyes are focused intently on a spot just to the side of her face, at the way he’s chewing at something, the inside of his lip or his teeth or his tongue. 

He is acting like _her_ , maybe as scared of his father as Brienne is of a thousand things. He stumbles closer, still not looking at her, he takes the edges of her sleeves between his fingers (grey cashmere, the nicest thing she owns). She thinks for a moment that she should leave, that he’s going to make her late, that _whatever this is_ is going to make her late and she’ll never have a shot at getting anywhere if she’s late to the interview. But she doesn't move because he’d given her a _flower_ at breakfast and his hand is warm, and his cast is rough, pushing up her sleeves and staring at her skin like he’s afraid of it and like he’s in love with it and like he doesn't know anything at all. 

“Jaime?” Brienne’s voice comes out more scared than it should and Jaime looks up and all she can think is _green_ and then he’s kissing her.

She doesn't stumble back, she doesn't flinch or freeze or push him away. She’s warm from the moment his lips hit hers, she’s kissing back as soon as his hands hit her elbows to pull her closer. There’s romance in this kiss, like there wasn't in the first. That was metal and heat and this is end-of-the-world fear and liquid honey sweet. His fingertips are light on her skin and her hands pull at his waist and he breaks to bow his head against her neck and she rests her hands at the back of his. Maybe it all started when he _did_ kiss her the first time, or the second. She feels like _nothing_ existed before their lips touched.

“This is ridiculous,” she murmurs, not sure if she’s saying it to herself or to him. 

“You have a job interview,” he whispers into her neck. 

He pulls away and she goes to straighten her clothing and to _leave and never come back_ but he catches her hand again, brushes his lips across her knuckles.

“My lady,” he mumbles against her skin. 

“Shut up,” she sniffs, snatching her hand away, moving sharply, as brisk and certain as she can be because she is not certain at all. Not certain of anything except that he laughs too much for her not to assume it’s all a joke. Even with his tongue and his fond eyes and his _everything_. Even when she wants nothing more than to never let him go. “Don’t follow me.”

“Never,” he laughs. “Good luck.” 

“Thanks." 

“Knock ‘em dead.” 

“Always.” 

Brienne is relieved when she sees nothing of Jaime in Tywin. Tywin is sharp and cold and his eyes are more gold than green, eyes like a snake, eyes like a lion. She doesn't smile when they shake hands, she mirrors his own expression, a tightening of the lips, muscles moving not because he wants them to but in some pretense of normal human behaviour. She wonders if she might be being to harsh already, but then he speaks. 

You've never managed a group of people before,” he says bluntly. 

“I...I haven’t no, but I've worked with these particular people for several years. They know me, they...respect me and my place at the restaurant.” 

“Your place...” his eyes flick down to the pile of papers he has on the desk in front of them. He makes a show of shuffling them. “You studied with Catelyn Stark.” 

“You know her?” 

“We’re acquainted,” his cold smile widens. “I knew her late husband better.” 

“She is a good woman,” Brienne manages awkwardly. 

She realises she is out of her depth immediately, in the way that he says _Catelyn Stark_ and in the way that he has barely even met her eyes since she walked into the room. Not like he’s uncomfortable with such an action, more like he doesn't think she’s worthy of the eye contact. Brienne clasps her hands tighter in her lap, crosses and recrosses her ankles, she tells herself that she _can_ play this part. 

She has deliberately not prepared answers, she knows she can talk easily about this job, it’s her _passion_ , she was _born for this_. She forces him to meet her eyes and he narrows his and she squares her jaw. She owes nothing to _any_ Lannister. She is clear and direct, she doesn't smile, she doesn't joke, she doesn't make anything up. When asked about _conflict in the workplace_ she doesn't flinch, they are her friends now anyway. But not too friendly, not friendly to an _unprofessional_ degree. She doesn't even think about Jaime. Tywin gives no indication that her answers are successful, he asks the questions rapidfire and he responds to them without any change in tone that might tell her whether she’d won or lost. She struggles out from the bottom of the chasm she imagines he’s created between him and everyone else and she actually smiles as she shakes his hand and turns to leave. Jaime had been exaggerating, of course he had. 

“One more thing, Miss Tarth,” Tywin calls, as Brienne’s fingers hit the door handle. 

She doesn't turn around until he tells her to, and even then she’s stiff, a robot. Her face feels pinched suddenly, a second away from crying, or like she’s already been crying for a hundred years and her skin is dry with the salt. 

“My daughter described you to me, though she claimed to be ignorant of your name.” 

For a moment Brienne wonders at how exactly _Cersei Lannister_ would describe her. Not kindly, though accurately enough that her father would know who she was. She imagines it wouldn't be hard really, _the only woman who is taller than Jaime_. Then she realises what he’s actually said and she opens her mouth. 

“Though I doubt that giving you a job was what Cersei intended for me to do with the information,” his eyes narrow and Brienne closes her mouth. “Provided, of course, that your references are up to scratch. I can’t imagine Catelyn Stark putting her name to someone she thought wasn’t capable of excellence.” 

“I’m not sure - “ 

“Do you doubt that I love my family?” he asks, his tone mild but edged in steel. 

“I wouldn't presume something like that,” she whispers. 

“I’m sure Jaime has told you stories, painted me into some sort of monster,” he says, smiling, a thin lipped expression with no warmth behind it. “We have...disagreements, at times, and I can’t pretend that I am entirely happy with the way any of my children have turned out, but they are still _my children_. They are still _Lannisters_.” 

_Lannisters only care about Lannisters_ , Brienne thinks and she bites her lip. 

“I’m not sure what this has to do with me,” she says. “I’m just applying for a job, it has nothing to do with Jaime or...or any of them.” 

“No,” Tywin agrees with a sigh. “Nevertheless, it might interest you to know that I think you will be good for Jaime.” 

Brienne looks up, surprised. He looks genuine, or as close to genuine as she can find in his stone cut face. Again she is struck by how little of Jaime she can see in that face. Jaime who is never cold, not even when he’s angry, Jaime who flits through emotions like a flip book, every one of them clear cut and vivid. 

“He needs someone to ground him, he needs a _friend_ , he hasn't had many. Cersei has always had a rigorous audition process,” for a moment something like pride crosses his features. “She’s like me in that way. So I will tolerate your presence in Jaime’s life, beyond that of a co worker, because I believe it will be beneficial to him.” 

“You will _tolerate me_?” Brienne blurts, disbelief making her forget to keep her voice down ( _hands in lap, ankles crossed, eyes lowered_ ). 

“Yes,” Tywin says mildly, like he hadn't noticed. “And I will give you this job because you’re _qualified_ and I believe you will do it properly.” 

“You will _tolerate_ me,” she says again. “I...I’m sorry but I don’t think I need your _permission_ to be friends with Jaime.” 

“Of course not,” this time his smile is dangerous. “But it is a good thing to have nonetheless.” 

Brienne wonders at Lannisters and how she always wants to hit at least one of them, usually more. She wonders at how arrogant Tywin is (perhaps there is something of him in Jaime after all) and how much _better_ he thinks he is than her. She wants to smash through his cold-eyed smirk and his painted on face and his pretense at emotion. She hates that she shows hers so easily, her heart on her sleeve and her anger and her fear. She lets all her breath out in a rush, clasps her hands tightly in front of her, not prim and proper really, she digs a thumbnail into the opposite palm. 

“If you offer me this job I will take it, because _I_ think I deserve it,” she says, trying to keep her voice even. “But I won’t be friends with Jaime because you want it, I’ll be friends with him because I do.” 

She turns, she walks to the door again. _He will speak as her hand hits the door handle_ , she thinks, because he’s like Petyr too, he knows how to keep fear in a room. But he doesn't and she falters just a little bit, scuffs the toe of her shoes against the carpet. She is blushing when she slams the door behind her, scowling when she stalks down the hallway. 

“You look appropriately pissed off,” Jaime tells her when she gets to the apartment. 

“Your family are hell sent,” she mutters and Jaime grins winningly, proving her point. 

“I told you he would hate you.” 

“I don’t think he does,” she slumps onto the couch next to him. “He thinks I’m good for you, he gave me permission to be your friend.” 

“Permission,” Jaime echoes, looking faintly surprised. “He knew who you were then?” 

“Cersei told him,” she frowns. “He’s going to hire me, I think.” 

There is a long silence, Jaime frowns at the floor and Brienne waits for his condemnation. _This is a trick, he’ll fire you if you’re_ mean _to me, he’ll murder you in your sleep, he’ll destroy the world after giving you what you want_. 

“This is....better than I could have hoped,” he says finally. 

“Is it though?” 

“You get a job and _I_ get to keep you.” 

“ _Jaime_.” 

“It’s perfect,” he carries on like he hasn't heard her. “Working together all day and then coming home to romantic candlelit dinners and lots and lots of sex.” 

“Candlelit french toast,” Brienne corrects. She’s blushing and the prickle of heat across her cheeks is reassuring somehow, the tame lion is still a lion even if it’s sleeping on her couch. “You don’t live here, you know.” 

“It’s only a matter of time,” he grins. “You've got daddy’s seal of approval.” 

“Lucky me,” she rolls her eyes. “I’m going to write you into terrible situations when you’re back at work.” 

“As is your right, boss,” he winks. “Am I allowed to take you to dinner yet?” 

“You’re allowed to ask.” 

“Would you like to go on a date with me, Wench?” 

“Ask me again another time,” she smiles. “I’m about done with your family for today. I’ll beat you at cards again though.” And she bumps her shoulder into his and he nudges her back and both of their smiles are much broader than they ought to be. 

Brienne is true to her word and she wins four hands in a row and takes all of Jaime’s matchstick poker chips and she feels like that _means_ something. It means she’ll definitely get the job and get the boy and get the life. It means all of it, Jaime’s broken arm, her lost job, jousting against Vargo Hoat and against Jaime and against Tywin and Cersei and _Petyr_ , will be worth it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for my whole life getting in the way of this. On the plus side, I am no longer homeless and will soon be acquiring beautiful fishes that I will name exclusively after game of thrones characters and if they die I will set myself on fire. What I mean to say really is thank you and I love you all and please continue being amazing readers who are amazing. I get all teary reading your comments because I am a small child secretly idk.
> 
> Thanks to jaimedayne on tumblr (soavantgarde here) and Leeni who are shining stars of perfection.


	13. Chapter 13

One night, over pasta and wine and definitely no candles, Brienne tells Jaime about her childhood. She uses a quiet voice and keeps the television on in the background, extra noise to make her words easier, busier, just one of one thousand conversations happening all around them. She uses words like _alone_ and _fear_ and _grief_ and above all that, though not said, not really, there is _a girl growing up without her mother_. At some point Brienne realises that Jaime had grown up in similar circumstances, Cersei too, and she wonders what she might have turned into without her father to guide her. She leans her head against Jaime’s shoulder and after a beat he seizes her hand in his like he’s taking the plunge, like he has to do it then or never at all, this end-of-the-world physical contact. 

They sit like that, not quite like friends might but not like lovers either, and they talk until Brienne can’t keep her eyes open and Jaime’s grasp on her hand weakens. It’s the early hours of the morning and there’s a strange moment where neither of them want to separate despite sleep in every pore and their beds being in completely different rooms. Letting go of one another seems impossible and Brienne starts to wonder why it’s even necessary. She can lead him to her bedroom and they can sleep in tangled sheets. It will be innocent, like Jaime collapsing drunk into her bed, they’re too tired for anything _else_ to happen. But Jaime meets her eyes and she can tell he knows what she’s thinking and his expression is sharp and hot and she freezes immediately and she wakes _up_. 

“Go to sleep, Jaime,” she mutters, looking away from him. 

“Go to _sleep_ , Brienne,” he retorts, dragging her eyes back to him, his gaze thick and warm as honey. 

“I am,” she gets to her feet, tears her eyes away again and tugs her hand out of his.

“Take me with you,” he purrs.

She can’t open her mouth to speak, all she can manage is a fervent, stuttered shake of her head and she stumbles backwards a few steps before turning and marching out of the room. 

She isn't tired when she brushes her teeth or when she crawls into her bed or when she strains her ears to hear him doing the same. She’s wide awake and alert as moonlit grass and she clutches her duvet to her with white knuckled hands. It should be everything she wants, the golden boy who shouldn't ever want her, asking her to take him to bed. The golden boy whose eyes are sex enough. It _is_ everything she wants but she’s had precious little experience with boys who aren't even golden and he is a daunting challenge. Ronnet Connington had been a pig, and she shudders now to think of his rough hands on her skin, just flattered that any boy had thought to touch her. Hyle Hunt had been kinder but he maintained from the beginning that he was only dating her because it would look good to his father who admired _her_ father a great deal and she’d let that happen too, _just flattered that any boy had thought to touch her_. She thinks Jaime Lannister is different, she had never said words like alone and fear and grief to any of the others, but there is still something somewhere that tells her it’s all a horrible trick. The others had been, after all. 

Eventually she falls asleep to troubled dreams completely lacking in any Lannister but full of Connington who’d had red hair and won a bet on her virginity and when Jaime knocks on her door in the morning she wakes up scared and tired and furious.

“What?” she snaps through the door.

Her bed is wild, the bottom sheet tugged up from the mattress, the duvet puddled on the floor.

“Have I caught you masturbating?” his voice is rough with sleep and laughter. “I can help with that.” 

“Fuck you, Jaime,” she mutters irritably, tugging the door open. “What do you want?” 

“Phone for you, it’s Tyrion.” 

Any anger drains out of her with the name. It’s been almost a week since her interview with Tywin and she’s been waiting for a call every day. From him or from his soft voiced secretary, _not_ from Tyrion, but it might make sense. She grabs the receiver from Jaime and pushes past him into the lounge.

“This is Brienne,” she says.

“Isn’t my brother charming,” his voice is all gentle amusement.

Brienne blushes, scowls at Jaime who is grinning victoriously at her across the lounge.

“That’s not the word I would use.”

“My father isn't one for phone calls, so I told him I would take this one. You probably know what it’s about.”

“Petyr’s job.”

“Your job, Brienne, congratulations.” 

Her breath comes out in a rush, her knees almost give out and she leans against the wall. She knows she’s smiling like a maniac and she doesn't care that Jaime’s watching her because he looks as happy and proud as she feels. None of it matters really, not practically knowing she already had this job, not Tywin allowing her to be something to Jaime, not Cersei trying to trick the job away from her or Jaime giving it to her because it was owed. She deserves this job and she would have got it without any of of that. 

“Thank you,” she smiles.

“You’ll have to come in to sign the contract,” Tyrion says then, sounding even more like he’s laughing, like he’s seen her relief and her elation.

“Today?”

“I’m here today, I can’t say when I’ll be here again.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“You have plans?” he asks, innocence and light, sounding so much like his brother that Brienne kind of wants to hang up on him just to see what would happen. 

Jaime himself is hovering behind her shoulder now, muttering things she can’t possibly hear, one hand tight around her wrist, his thumb stroking across the flannel at the cuffs of her pajamas.

“No,” she admits with a short laugh. “I can come in this afternoon.”

“Perfect. Three o’clock?”

“Perfect,” she agrees. “Would you like to speak to Jaime?”

“No, I spoke with him before and I wouldn't want to interrupt whatever terrible congratulation ceremony he is currently planning.”

“Oh _god_.” Brienne glances at Jaime who is looking disturbingly thoughtful.

“God can’t save you now. I’ll see you later, Brienne.”

“Bye, Tyrion.”

Jaime spins her toward him immediately, she drops the receiver and he laughs and she pushes him away.

“No, Jaime,” she warns, picking up her phone and moving to place it in it’s cradle. “Not happening.”

“But parties,” Jaime protests. “Parties to celebrate _you_.”

“That’s not a draw card.” 

“I’ll make a banner, it will say—” he brandishes his hands out in front of him “—Congratulations Brienne: Perfect and Beautiful.” 

Brienne laughs, shakes her head, allows him to take hold of her wrist again, tug her a little closer. She turns her head away, he smiles and attempts to pull her closer still and she laughs more and pushes him away, gently this time, rocking him back on his heels.

“Definitely not.” 

“You want something more honest? Congratulations Brienne: Not Pretty.”

“Congratulations Jaime: Biggest Asshole Ever.”

“Congratulations Brienne: Bigger Than A House.”

“Congratulations Jaime: Beaten By A Girl.” 

“We’ll have a joint party, hang all those banners up, confuse the guests.” 

“What guests? You don’t have any friends,” Brienne grins.

“You’re a vicious wench,” Jaime laughs. “I don’t know why I want to keep you so badly.” 

“An impossible goal, Jaime.” 

“Those are the best sorts, I like a challenge.”

“I know you do.”

They grin at one another, that goofy, too wide, too happy smile that has been creeping into their interactions more and more. Brienne wants to wipe it off his face just as much as she wants to freeze them both in that expression so she can always call it up in her mind with just a thought. She wants to _kiss_ it off his face and then push him over for making her smile like that. She doesn't think she’ll ever stop thinking about Jaime in opposing absolutes. Kiss him or kill him. She likes it, she thinks it makes some twisted sort of sense.

“Alright, how about we go to dinner tonight then. A first date.”

“A first date,” Brienne smiles.

The words feel strange on her lips, like she’s speaking with her mouth full. This is something big, the first time she’s acknowledged _this_ outside of her imagination really, despite flirting and dancing around one another and _actual kissing_. It was always Jaime before and now he’s looking at her, just a hint of a smile curling the corners of his mouth, looking almost like he’s holding his breath. She realises that she is too and she lets it out and she smiles a little wider.

“I guess I can accept that.”

“And a party afterwards.”

“Stop.”

Jaime comes with her to the restaurant making claims of wanting to see his brother but grinning at her constantly and calling her _boss_ with every second breath. It’s empty and echoey and strange when they get there and Brienne relishes in the idea that this place might finally feel like hers. Her sawdust and sand arena and her electric air and screaming crowd, hers like they've never been and hers like she’s always wanted. Maybe Brienne the Blue will be the name they chant. _If_ it fits in with the story. She would never sacrifice the integrity of _her_ kitsch medieval themed restaurant for personal glory. She grins at Jaime without saying any of this and he grins back at her like he knows exactly what she’s thinking.

“I won’t go down without a fight,” he informs her.

Tyrion is kind to her when she signs her contract, careful with her in a way that Jaime would never be, in a way that she doesn't think she’d _want_ Jaime to be. He signs his name with a flourish and she signs hers and Tywin’s signature is there too, printed in heavy black ink with a full stop at the end of Lannister. When it’s all done and dusted he gives her a copy and they discuss things like start dates and annual leave and management training until she goes happily silent and he starts to look thoughtful.

“I suppose I should warn you about toying with my brother’s affections, if you hurt him I will hurt you and all that,” he says eventually, glancing at her warily. “And as much as I’m sure other people will enjoy the spectacle, I’d prefer to avoid that if I can.” 

“I promise to only hurt him when he absolutely deserves it,” Brienne says solemnly, raising her hand like the boy scout she never was. 

“He will often deserve it,” Tyrion sighs and Brienne decides she likes him more than all the other Lannisters combined. More than Jaime certainly.

They walk down to the arena together to _survey her new domain_ and just before they push through the double doors Tyrion pauses.

“Now...I feel like I should warn you...” he says, rolling his eyes skyward.

He looks so long suffering that for a moment Brienne is filled with dread. She pushes quickly through the doors and of course everyone is there and of course they all shriek _surprise_ and _of course_ Jaime is at the front looking _so_ pleased with himself and holding a glass of wine even though it’s definitely no later than half past three. Everyone is there looking brilliant and bright and even Jon is smiling though that’s mostly because Ygritte is tugging at the corners of his mouth and Brienne really wants to run or hide or cry or laugh so she does a terrible, ridiculous mix of all of them and shuts her eyes and covers her face with her hands and grins wetly into her palms.

“This is the stupidest thing you've ever done,” she tells Jaime when he sidles up to her a minute later. “I was only gone for twenty minutes.”

“That’s why the decorations are so sparse,” he mourns.

Brienne takes her hands away from her face, looks around properly. There are no decorations. Just a table with a bowl of punch and some bottles of wine and a plate of Sansa’s lemon cakes. 

“We might get pizza later,” Jaime says, following her gaze. 

“It’s barely even a party.”

“But it’s for _you_.” 

And because it’s Sunday and because Brienne doesn't officially start her management training until Wednesday there’s really nothing to be done but let herself be enveloped by her proud friends. They eat Sansa’s delicious lemon cakes and drink Jaime’s awful punch and Ygritte stealthily provides Brienne with a flask of something she pulls out from inside her coat that tastes far better. Brienne briefly thinks about the terrible things alcohol does to her and then decides _fuck it_ because she was unemployed yesterday and now she has her dream job and she is _celebrating_. 

Music starts up at some point and it’s jarring for just a moment, hearing something other than generic medieval sounding pipes and harps, and Brienne feels a little bit like she’s in another world. Margery and Sansa dance together, waltzing around in the sawdust like they’re on air and in glass slippers and then everyone is dancing and Brienne refuses even though her eyes are blurring a little bit and Jaime has asked her at least ten times. She sits in the sawdust instead, knowing that it will get into her clothes because it _always_ does, and not caring at all. Jaime sits beside her and wriggles his face against her neck, his mouth open and wet and his breath so terrible that all she can think about is when they first got drunk together at a party and how different things are now. So she turns her face to his and she kisses him. Softly and soundly and brief because everything _is_ different now and because she wants to. Across the room Sansa crows in triumph and Jaime looks a little bit dazed, his eyes slightly unfocused, a stupid smile on his face. He leans his head against her shoulder and she tucks her hand under his arm and they stay like that, watching everyone else dance and drink and laugh, for a long time.

Later, back at Brienne’s apartment and almost, _mostly_ sober, they crash through the door. Jaime’s hands are under her shirt, at the small of her back, pulling her against him and her hands are at his shoulders, around his neck, in his hair. Their mouths crash together clumsily, all passion and no technique but neither of them care. Brienne wouldn't stop kissing him for anything. She presses him against the wall and he grins under her lips and pushes her back and she pulls away only to tug him toward her bedroom.

Brienne is sober enough that she blushes when he unbuttons her shirt and sober enough that part of her is still scared he’ll whisper _April fool_ in her ear even though it’s March. But he doesn't, just scrapes his teeth across her nipple, rough enough to make her gasp, and runs his hands over her ribs like he’s exploring the way they exist under her skin. His skin and his body are not like they were in her dream, not quite hard planes of muscle and a golden aura, but he’s beautiful still and she searches out every scar and every freckle and she brands each mark with her tongue until he’s shivering with goosebumps and growling against her collarbone.

"Do you...have anything?" she asks, pulling back for a moment, relishing in the low whine that produces from Jaime.

"What?" Jaime looks baffled.

"I'm not interested in having babies, Jaime," she explains patiently.

"You're not on the pill?" he sits up.

"I didn't exactly think I was going to get laid anytime soon," she rolls her eyes. 

They sit for a moment, both panting slightly, mussed and half naked, and Jaime's eyes are wide and Brienne knows she must look terrified and she's definitely blushing again, and it's suddenly all a bit much. She leans forward, resting her forehead on his shoulder, tucking her fingers around his neck, and she starts to laugh, almost silently, hiccupy little gasps of laughter that leave his skin damp and her hair plastered to her lips. He is frozen for a moment, just letting her laugh, then he draws his arms around her and she can feel him smiling.

“I actually have a feeling that Tyrion has provided for us in that area,” Jaime says a minute later, sitting bolt upright. “Certainly he pickpocketed me and then _un_ pickpocketed me for a reason earlier.”

“The sensible Lannister,” Brienne murmurs. “He’s scared you’ll attempt to procreate.” 

Jaime grins, a flash in the dark, and pulls his wallet out from his back pocket. Tyrion has provided for them of course, and Brienne laughs as Jaime narrows his eyes dubiously at the silver foil packet before carefully placing it on the nightstand. He focusses back on Brienne, sat in the middle of her bed, missing a shirt and thoroughly kissed all over. She lies back on the pillows, she smirks at him, playing a part far sexier than her own.

“This is the part where I decide that this is a terrible idea and put my missing clothes back on.”

“This is the part where I curse myself for ever getting involved with such a tease,” he retorts and her smile widens.

She pulls him to her, curls her fingers over his shoulders and tugs him down to, skin to skin, like it should be. They press their hips together, Brienne arches into him, feeling him hard through his jeans, unable to keep from shivering at that and unable to stop the smile that creeps across her mouth. She presses it into his shoulder before he notices, she pulls him closer to her, wriggles as his fingers brush across her breasts. Calloused fingers, like her own. 

They lose the rest of their clothing in minutes. Jaime’s fingers brush through Brienne’s pubic hair, hers ghost over the sharp bones at his hip. She is glad that it’s dark even though the way his skin feels on hers makes her think she might not be _so_ awkward in front of him, unclothed and in light. Part of her wants to blurt out something ridiculous, attempt to be sexy, a low voice and extra meaning in every word, _I would let you do anything to me_ , but she doesn't, just kisses him fiercely and tries to tell him in the strength behind her fingertips. 

He struggles with the condom and she doesn't even try to help, just laughs and ducks when he swipes at her lazily with one hand, a hiss whistling through his lips. He manages eventually and she holds her breath as he pushes inside her, lets it out in a hum against his throat, holds his waist, his hips, as he holds her face between his palms, pulls back, pushes forward. 

It’s not fairytale, soap opera perfect, it’s not candles lit and soft lighting and intense eye contact. Brienne can’t even meet Jaime’s eyes for the most part, not even when he thumbs the line of her jaw. And he seems as nervous as she is, worried and twitchy and far less smooth than she’s come to expect from him. But it _is_ perfect too, as clumsy and new to it all as they both are (as they _both are_ ) and Brienne bites Jaime’s collarbone a little too hard when she cums and he shivers and gasps when he does and afterwards, when they’re cleaned up and curled up in one another, Brienne doesn't think about any other experience she’s had at all. Not Ronnet Connington or Hyle Hunt. Just Jaime who is tangled in her sheets in her bed. 

Just Jaime, who is gone when she wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN etc etc etc hope the sexy bits are alright. I am not well-versed in sexy bits and tend to balk at the idea of writing them super detailed like some people do so you get only vague sexy bits wooooh!
> 
> Biggest, hugest thank yous to memorde and soavantegarde for being perfect betas.
> 
> As always, I love all of you the most ever. Especially Miss M who keeps writing me comments that just...slay me every time.


	14. Chapter 14

For a long time Brienne keeps her eyes shut. If she keeps them closed _it’s not real_. Jaime is there and the sheets aren't cold where they should be warm and this _isn't like the other times_. She keeps her eyes shut tight and her fists the same, tangled in sheets that still feel exactly like they've been fucked in. And then she thinks of all the other explanations and she opens her eyes and decides he’s making her breakfast.

The kitchen is empty but it doesn't matter. He’s gone out. He’s getting hash browns because they were supposed to once, it’s sweet and romantic and everything it should be. He’s gone away forever, it’s a joke, it always was, he’s disappeared to laugh about it with Tyrion and then snatch her new job back. He’s gone to buy her diamonds for her fingers and pearls to drape around her neck and roses to wear in her hair and armour to wear over all of it. He’s gone back to Cersei. She thinks all of this in rapid succession and none of them stick except for _Cersei_ which feels so true she can’t stand it.

“Jaime isn’t here,” she says as soon as Sansa picks up the phone.

This is what girls do. They solve crises together, they talk on the phone about boys and how terrible they are.

“And that’s a problem _why_?”

“He...we....”

“Oh my god, _Brienne_!” Sansa shrieks. “I always knew you had it in you.”

“But he’s not _here_.”

“So what? He’s getting you croissants or something. He’s _providing for his lady_ , have you never watched animal planet?”

“But he’s...” Brienne struggles with how to explain it without the whole truth. “He’s a Lannister.”

Sansa is silent for a beat longer than she should be.

“That’s true,” she concedes. “What do _you_ think he’s doing?”

“I’m worried he’s with Cersei.”

“Right,” Sansa says. “The toxic twin. And she’ll do what exactly?”

“She’ll ruin him again,” Brienne whispers. _She’ll steal him again_.

“I think...I think you need to calm down, maybe drink some tea, maybe watch some television, you know as well as I do that reruns are on until noon. You calm down and you wait until Jaime comes back with coffee and pastries and an apology for being stupid enough to _disappear on a girl_ after banging her.”

“Pastries...”

“And an _apology_ ,” Sansa confirms.

“I can do that.”

“Of course you can,” Sansa sooths.

“But what if - “

“No,” Sansa’s voice is ice and steel for one instant, back to softness and light in the next. “Now, on to more important things, how was the sex?”

“It was perfect,” Brienne says miserably.

The clock ticks passed breakfast and Brienne starts to think, absurdly, that maybe he has _died_. Killed tragically getting breakfast for his lady love. Hit by a car or a sudden aneurysm or struck by lightning. The sort of illnesses that kill people in dramatic medical television shows, something no one would expect. Better to die on an _honourable quest_ (breakfast is the most important meal of the day) than be out gallivanting with toxic twin sisters, working out daddy issues together, even if it is far more likely. 

She shuffles the pack of cards on her coffee table over and over again, she plays a hundred hands of solitaire and thinks she’s probably the saddest, _silliest_ thing in the world. She yells desperately at reruns of her and Sansa’s favourite soap and mutters under her breath, thinks about how her favourite couple probably aren’t even meant to be anyway. No more than anyone ever really is. She thinks about how absurd it is that _she_ should be a romantic and about how hard she tries not to be. She drinks coffee that's too hot and then forgets about it until it's too cold and she refuses to think about the night they’d just shared. There had been more skin than in her dreams but she pretends it had been a dream too, the impossibly fantasy of the girl who would never get such a golden boy, not in any romantic comedy and certainly not in any romantic reality. 

When the phone rings in the middle of the afternoon the cards slip in her hands and scatter across the room in a fan of hearts and clubs and kings and queens.

“Brienne,” Sansa says, sounding nervous.

Brienne stomach drops and she sighs her breath out with it because Sansa’s voice makes it certain. This will confirm all of her fears.

“Margaery saw him with Cersei at lunch.”

“Thank you Sansa, “Brienne says, disgusted and embarrassed at how dead her voice sounds.

On the other end Sansa starts to say something but Brienne hangs up before she can. She doesn't _do_ anything after that, she just wanders back to her bed, strips it of the sheets, and falls asleep on the bare mattress, tangled in a duvet.

She is woken by a key scraping in the lock, the door opening, and she vaguely registers that it is twilight outside but really she just unfolds herself from the bed and the blanket and is bolting down the hall before she really knows what she is doing. She hits Jaime. Punches him in the face with vicious aim that doesn't falter until the last second when it’s too late and then there is the brightness of blood at his nose and the fogginess of her daytime sleep clears and she can see him properly and he really is _bleeding_ and she claps her hand over her mouth.

“Shit, Jaime, I’m...” but she can’t say the word.

“Christ Brienne, who did you think it _was_?”

He stumbles inside, pinching his nose. There is blood splattered across his shirt and a circle is blackening under his eye.

“You,” Brienne murmurs, closing the door behind them. “I thought it was you.”

She gets him ice and a cloth to get rid of the worst of the blood and she sits down carefully in the chair opposite him.

“What was that all about then?” Jaime asks, once the blood has slowed and he looks a bit less hellish.

Brienne can hardly breath.

“First... _first_ I thought you’d gone to get breakfast. Some sort of...r-romantic gesture, I don’t know. Then I thought maybe you’d done that but then you’d been...killed or kidnapped or...some other bullshit thing you might actually get yourself caught up in. But really the whole time I was thinking that you were with Cersei.”

Jaime is silent and Brienne waits for it, some confession, _the break up_ , cruel words Cersei has fed him to say. Her pet, her puppet. But he stays silent.

“Then Sansa called me and told me Margaery had seen you with her and I...went to bed.”

“You went to bed,” Jaime echoes, sounding exhausted.

There is another long silence where Brienne stares at her hands and thinks about how they had felt on Jaime’s skin last night and she feels a bit like crying again and a bit like punching him again and a lot like the silliest girl in the world again.

“I went...” Jaime runs bloody fingers through his hair and sighs. “I’ve never...I’ve never had sex with the person I wanted to. With Cersei it was always other girls, girls who looked like her, girls she watched me with, but it wasn’t... _her_. But you...I wanted you, want you still and it...it scared me a bit. A lot actually, if I’m being honest. I had to talk to her. I couldn't tell her I was done before, but I still needed to. So I told her it was over, for good, me and her. We were no longer whatever we were before. _Two halves of a whole_.”

He laughs, looking somewhat deranged, covered in blood and bruises and his voice bitter as lemons.

“She tried to sway me in the only way she knew how. She promised me _her_ and...she was my whole life for a long time and she knew exactly what she was doing offering me this thing I had wanted for as long as I could remember.”

Brienne realises she has been holding her breath and she lets it out as evenly as she can. He fucked Cersei. He fucked her and then he went and fucked Cersei. She wonders if they will take the job from her after this or if they’ll keep her, trapped by Lannisters. _The silliest girl in the world_ , she thinks again, but there’s another part of her that’s stuck on what he’d said earlier, _want you still_.

“I went back to our... _her_ place with her. I packed up everything I’d left there while she screamed and threw things and blew fucking kisses. I realised that I don’t want anything from her anymore, she’s...she’s a chunk of my life that I can’t get back or do over, but I don’t want her anywhere near this next bit.

“This next bit,” Brienne whispers.

Jaime looks at her, meets her eye, smiles hesitantly, a ghoulish expression under the blood but welcome anyway. Brienne brushes a thumb across her knuckles, feeling queasy for a hundred reasons.

“This next bit is you, by the way. I’m sorry I didn't call.” 

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know,” his smile widens. “And you broke my nose for it. You have to learn to _trust me_.”

There is something there that will need exploring. Something like the way Brienne fights all the bits that don’t need fighting and lets all the bits that hurt her most crush her. Something like how careless Jaime is because he doesn't know not to be. Something like _trusting Jaime_ when such a thing still feels impossible. But not when Jaime is looking at her like that and not when Brienne has swung so sharply from misery to joy. 

“I’m sorry,” she says peaceably.

“I deserved it.”

“Don’t tell Tyrion on me, he’ll think we have to fight.”

“Now that is something I would pay to see.”

And she rolls her eyes at him and he ruffles her hair with his bloodied hand and she shrieks and pulls away and they fall into that easy thing they have where they fight and they pull away and they come back together and they repeat and repeat and repeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These kids and their dramas. One more chapter guys, I love you all <3


	15. Chapter 15

Doctor Qyburn looks like the old man in every nineties children’s film. His eyes crinkle at the corners and his smile is kind and he takes a perverse amount of enjoyment in wielding a small, handheld, circular saw. The noise it makes brings Brienne back to childhood and dentist’s drills and her own excursions into broken bones. It’s not a pleasant sound, metal and screeching but not like a swordfight. _That_ sort of metallic noise is warm from body heat and from competition, this is cold as any medical procedure would be. 

She frowns at the saw as Qyburn slowly drags it through the plaster of Jaime’s cast. It’s filthy grey now, and the only signature is hers, scrawled in uncertain script and black marker, _WENCH_. Jaime tells Qyburn to avoid that, cut the cast off somewhere where it won’t destroy her nickname, and the doctor raises an eyebrow and glances at Brienne and she blushes of course and focuses on the anatomy posters on the walls. The cast coming off means something strange. It means almost two months of him living with her and kissing her and sleeping in her bed (two months of her learning what his tongue feels like all over). Younger people would count it as an anniversary, disregarding the meaning of the word, _two months is practically a year_. Brienne has never been in a relationship for longer. 

“I want to keep the cast,” Jaime tells Qyburn.

His arm is grey and dry with old skin and dirt. The cast is disgusting too, slicked down inside, worn with sweat and heat. It’s cracked at the edges, around his thumb and fingers, the place kept bare so his stitches could be taken out. 

“Throw it away, it’s disgusting,” Brienne tells Qyburn. 

The doctor smirks, puts it in a plastic bag for Jaime, sends them on their way.

“I’m going to burn that when we get home,” Brienne informs him as soon as they’re in the hallway. 

“I’m going to _frame_ it,” Jaime laughs.

They hold hands while they walk. He keeps his newborn arm held gingerly at one side and holds her tight with the other. Brienne imagines that people look at them, wrinkle their noses at the girl who is so beneath the boy. She doesn't care, she will _always_ care. She holds his hand anyway, bumps shoulders with him anyway. Besides, _he_ doesn't seem to care that he could _have anyone_. He gave up Cersei for her. She tightens her hold on his hand and he presses his mouth to her hair briefly and it’s awful really, how perfect casual affection can feel.

Jaime is living with her, though most of his belongings still in storage. He has his own drawer in her room, and space in her closet. She concedes him that and he never pushes for anything more, they’re still very careful around one another even when they aren’t. Brienne is scared she’ll ruin it with the way she is awkward in her body or with her words, a bull in a china shop, but she thinks that Jaime is scared too and that’s some comfort. She smiles at his toothbrush in the cup in her bathroom and at his shoes by the door and at his coat on the hook next to hers. They are learning how to be domestic and it’s ridiculous and terrifying.

At work Brienne steps into her new role with ease. She writes epics and then whittles them down into scripts that last a week at a time. She considers things like _character development_ and _historical accuracy_ and she consults Catelyn Stark and struggles with what is really appropriate for a dinner show. It’s _hard_ and jousting and fighting are her fresh air (Jaime is her fresh air too but doesn't acknowledge that nearly as often). She doesn't make herself Queen’s champion but she does evolve from a villain into something else. She serves Daenerys without tears on her cheeks and anger in her swings. She is not the knight who loved Renly, not the enemy of anyone, she hires someone new for that, a giant named Gregor who rides for an unnamed foreign King. _Future storylines_ , she thinks, _doors left open_.

She stops using her locker room. She abandons the room immediately (it’s too empty, too metallic and too cold) in favour of using her office as a dressing room. It helps her to remember that it’s her’s, not Petyr’s, when she sees her armour stacked and gleaming on a stand in the corner. More than her name on a plaque and on the door. More even than Jaime’s face as her computer’s desktop background, grinning with eyes closed, terribly cropped, an awful attempt at an in-bed couple shot that she’d wriggled out of entirely. But it’s her armour that really fixed everything in place. Blue stained metal. She’d toyed with changing it all, becoming a new sort of knight with an entirely new colour, but she decided that blue for grief was still appropriate because maybe it could be blue for the bruises she gives her enemies or royal blue for the Queen she serves now too. So it stays blue and it sits in the corner and makes her office hers.

Jaime insists on starting work immediately despite his arm looking frail and raw even scrubbed free of the dirt the cast left behind. 

“I won’t go easy on you,” she tells him primly as they arrive.

“Of course not,” Jaime smiles. “Can you add me into the script?”

“The disgraced Lannister Lion returns from exile only to be beaten over and over again by Brienne the Blue.” 

“The _triumphant_ return of the Kingslayer, charging down everyone who would oppose him in the name of Queen Daenerys. Especially Brienne the _traitor_.”

“Brienne the Blue, pardoned traitor and Queen’s champion, friend to all except the dastardly Jaime Lannister.”

“ _Dastardly_?” Jaime looks wounded. “I’m not a cartoon villain.”

“No, just the regular kind,” Brienne smiles. “I’m sure we can fit you in.” 

Sansa wrinkles her nose at them when they walk in (not holding hands but too close to be anything other than _what they are_ ) and her face is a picture of disgust. 

“You’re not impressing anyone, you know,” she sniffs. “We’re all perfectly happy single and destitute.”

“Speak for yourself,” Loras says happily, waving at them as he walks toward the arena, sword swinging in the other hand.

“ _Knights_ ,” Sansa hisses. “Do I really have to pick up a sword to get some romance around here?”

Before Brienne can respond Sansa is gone, stomping after Loras and muttering under her breath. She had only remained ecstatic about Brienne’s romance for about a week before devolving into bitterness punctuated by the startlingly world weary sighs of someone far older. Brienne _thinks_ it’s an act, especially when the younger girl casts her hand against her forehead and flings herself into armchairs (or dining chairs or wheeled office chairs) dramatically, but she’s careful with Sansa all the same and makes sure to schedule morning soap opera watching at least once a week. _A friendship tradition_ , Brienne thinks, and feels a bit giddy. 

They do a script read through in the arena and everyone keeps asking who will _win_ but Brienne hasn't decided yet. She _misses_ hitting him with a sword or thundering down the line, her lance point at his heart, but she doesn't know who will win. It’s different now, it’s not romantic to beat your lover to the ground with a sword or knock him off a horse. Of course, Brienne _isn't_ romantic, not even with hours a week of soap operas and romance novels and _Jaime Lannister_ in her bed. She’s far more likely to be bruised than bedded and now that she’s both, she’s not sure what’s supposed to _happen_.

“We’ll do it for real,” she decides out loud. “No script, whoever wins wins.” 

“You’ll kill each other,” Sansa sighs. “But I’m sure it will be terribly romantic.”

“There’s no competition,” Jaime says.

“You’re not _that_ good.”

Jaime smiles, shrugs. His hands are deep in his pockets and his expression is curiously blank under the smile and for a moment Brienne thinks she might have misunderstood. He thinks _she_ will win.

“I _am_ that good actually,” Jaime tilts his chin with a challenge in his eyes. “Are you sure you can stand the embarrassment?”

“I think I can take it,” Brienne rolls her eyes. 

“I won’t go easy on _you_.”

“You better not.”

“You guys need to stop flirting right now or I _will_ kill you,” Sansa scowls. “Margaery, tell them they’re terrible people.”

“You’re terrible people,” Margaery smiles. 

“And Brienne will win,” Sansa continues.

“Jaime will win,” Loras disagrees. “He’s the Kingslayer.”

“Hear that, Wench? I’m the _Kingslayer_.”

“And _I’m_ not a King,” Brienne sniffs. “And I’m definitely going to win.”

“I think so too,” Jon muses.

“Care to put money on that?” Loras demands, grinning recklessly.

“Let’s sneak into your office while they’re fighting,” Jaime purrs into Brienne’s ear. “You can do a knightly strip tease for me and we can forget all this nonsense.”

“You’re just scared I’ll beat you.”

“Terrified, love,” he laughs and Brienne can’t do anything to stop her smile.

When the lights dim for the last joust of the night, Jaime glitters across the sand in dirt dampened gold and Brienne gleams in moonlit blue. The betting pool is up to one hundred and seventeen dollars and a date with Sansa and includes declarations that Brienne will win but Jaime won’t fall or Jaime will win but Brienne will black his eyes. Brienne doesn't care, she only cares about being the best she can and beating Jaime if she can and being beaten by Jaime if _he_ can. The crowd are screaming and some of them have her colours and children are waving her flags. She raises a hand and the screaming gets louder and Jaime salutes and the crowd _roars_. Brienne raises the point of her lance, Daenerys drops her hand, they kick their horses into a gallop.

Later, Sansa and Margaery are discussing where they’ll go on their date and Renly is shouting at Loras from a taxi and Daenerys and Jon and Ygritte are arm in arm in arm and laughing and Brienne’s holding Jaime’s hand and he’s dancing his fingers across her knuckles and they all pile into the cab together and head out to anywhere-cheap and Brienne almost chokes on the night time air she’s grinning so wide. It’s a perfect mix of touching people and _being friends_ and her limbs ache a bit from the show but it’s a good ache, a familiar pain, comfortable and welcome. Like stretching everything as far as you think it can go and then pushing it just a little further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh ..the end. 
> 
> This is going to get a little embarrassingly gushy but I don't even care here goes: Basically, thank you. All of you guys who have read this and commented and not commented and kudosed and betaed and just basically existed in the J/B fandom are perfect, amazing people and I've been so thrilled to be a part of that all. I have been kind of overwhelmed by the response to this fic and I'm so happy that you all stuck with it to the end despite increasingly long gaps between chapters. I went through what basically were the worst few months of my life while writing this fic and your comments and support made it a whole lot easier to...exist and...thankyouIloveyouyouguysaresogreatomg etc etc. Um. Yeah. 
> 
> I plan on keeping up J/B fic but I can't promise anything without probably breaking that promise almost immediately (I have like...half of a cop/witness protection whatever fic written but that is kind of a saturated AU area so we'll see) but um, thanks, kids, I'll be around :')

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, by popular demand, I guess? :)


End file.
